By Mario Montalvo/ne news editor
The NE speech and debate team took home awards from the 37th annual Red River Forensics Classic tournament hosted by the Louisiana State University of Shreveport.
Thirteen colleges and universities participated in the competition, dominated mostly by four-year universities with only three community colleges, said speech and debate club advisor Lisa Benedetti.
TCC was represented by NE students Alexander Alatorre, Caitlin Bell, Zeke Branim, Rachel DeLeon, Kenneth Ebberly, Priscilla Hatcher, Joseph Meyers, Lola Obe, Daniel Persaud and Dana Renken.
Branim won fourth place in prose interpretation and went on to be named Top Novice in prose interpretation. Alexander Alatorre won sixth place in informative speaking.
“It was a very exciting tournament,” Benedetti said. “All of us are incredibly proud of all their efforts.”
Students interacted with competitors from other parts of the country they don’t get the opportunity to see until nationals, she said.
Participants competed in one of three types of events: debate, interpretation (acting) and platform (public) speaking.
In this particular tournament, NE students competed in interpretation events and public speaking events, Benedetti said.
“At the next tournament, we’ll probably have debaters,” she said.
Not only did the students get the opportunity to see the different competitors, but the experience will help them to become more confident the next time they compete, Benedetti said. Alatorre agreed.
“There were a bunch of schools we had never seen before,” Alatorre said. “It was just really different seeing what they had to offer than what schools like UT were doing at the previous tournament.”
For Branim, it was his first time to compete on a college level.
“I did prose for three years in high school, but this is my first college tournament,” he said. “Probably the scariest part of it all was that I was going up against people that were better than the competitors that I’d met in high school.”
Aside from the fact that it was his first college-level competition, Branim said the tournament was enjoyable.
“It’s a fun team to work with,” he said. “It was great to be with my team some place other than school and get to know everybody a little better.”
Benedetti said the forensics club is always open to having new students get involved.
“They can come at any given time, and we’ll teach them what they need to know to get involved in the experience,” she said.
For more information about the forensics club or to join, contact Benedetti at lisa.benedetti@tccd.edu.
