HPU’s speech and debate team, Student Speaker Bureau, recently brought home several awards from the National Christian College Forensics Association (NCCFA) national championship tournament held at Carson Newman College in Jefferson City, Tennessee.
HPU won Third Place Overall Debate Sweepstakes for small-entry schools. The university competes in the parliamentary debate format.
“Our team did exceptionally well against the competition,” said Dr. Julie Welker, SSB coach. “Winning third place overall means our teams have to win more rounds than we lose, collectively, and each of our five teams competed in a minimum of six debate rounds.”
HPU had two teams advance to quarterfinals. The team of sophomores Ben Palmer, of Van, and Tim Hardy, of Corpus Christi, advanced to quarterfinals in the junior varsity division. The freshman team of Katie Mullaney, of Shrewsbury, Mass., and Katie Rose Bonner, of Lytle, advanced to quarterfinals in the novice division.
“We were up against some of the best parliamentary debate schools in the nation, so making it to outrounds is exciting,” said Welker.
HPU had three students win debate speaker awards. Palmer was named fourth place speaker in the junior varsity division; Cayden McDonald, of Whitehouse, was named tenth place speaker in the junior varsity division; and Mullaney was named fourth place speaker in the novice division.
The team also had several students advance to finals in individual speaking events.
Mullaney was HPU’s most decorated speaker at the tournament. She was awarded ninth place overall individual sweepstakes speaker. She also won sixth place in Novice Impromptu Speaking, third place in Novice Extemporaneous speaking and fourth place in Novice Programmed Oral Interpretation. She advanced to finals in each event she entered.
Senior Jacob Aschmutat, of Corpus Christi, won third place in Open Impromptu Speaking and he and partner Adam Hardy, also of Corpus Christi, won fifth place in Open Duo Interpretation. Hardy also won sixth place in Open Programmed Oral Interpretation.
The NCCFA tournament is open to schools that are a part of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. HPU has been participating in the national tournament since 2006.
“I really enjoyed going into a good, competitive debate round and then coming out of that round and being able to have really awesome conversations with the other teams, regardless of how intense the debates were,” said Aschmutat. “There’s a camaraderie at this tournament that we don’t always experience at other places, and that makes all our hard work worth it.”
Pictured above is HPU’s Student Speaker Bureau, (back row): Marcos Corley and Adam Hardy; (middle row): Ben Palmer, Timothy Hardy, Cayden McDonald and Jake Aschmutat; and (front row): Mrs. Kim Bryant, coach; Katie Bonner, Jessica Ramirez, Catherine Mullaney, Adrianna Perez and Dr. Julie Welker, coach. Photos contributed by HPU.
