USU Debate is Golden

The Utah State University Speech and Debate Team returned from its last conference tournament held at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., as conference champions.

As four-time Northwest Forensic Conference champions, Utah State continued to be recognized and received the highest award in the conference as a Gold Medal School. This honor recognizes the quality of USU’s program as a stand-out in the conference, said team coach Tom Worthen

 

In a wrap-up of the concluding meet’s results, the novice debate team of Shelly Daines and Amber Winward went undefeated through seven rounds of debate, then lost on a split decision in the semi-finals. Daines was recognized as the top novice debater at the tournament. The debate team of Shannon Johnson and Bryce Draper and the debate team of Mike Smith and Zack Myers had a positive win-loss record, but did not move on to elimination rounds due to lower speaker points.

 

In individual speech events, Winward placed fourth in novice informative speaking and forth in novice persuasive speaking. Johnson placed first in Storytelling, third in persuasive speaking and fourth in informative speaking. Draper placed second in storytelling and fourth in after dinner speaking. Tim Worthen was recognized as first place winner in junior informative speaking, first in junior poetry interpretation and second in junior persuasive speaking. Smith placed second in informative speaking and Teancum Hale placed third in prose interpretation.

 

USU’s speech and debate team was established five years ago, and has worked to be the most competitive in the Northwest conference, Worthen said. Many conference teams have 20 or more team members, while USU regularly competes with eight to ten team members.

 

“Utah State has a small team, but pound for pound, no one has a better team,” said Brent Northup, coach at Carroll College in Helena, Mont.

 

For questions about USU’s speech and debate team, contact Tom Worthen at (435) 994-0023.

 

 

Source: USU debate
Contact: Tom Worthen (435) 994-0023