Speaking Bearcats continue dominance in Nebraska
SUBMITTED PHOTO
The Speaking Bearcats pose before heading to their rounds at the Kansas in Nebraska swing tournament. Pictured are, from left: seniors Nick Van Ross, Emily Meyers, Mersadie Moore, Alicia Johnson, and Ve’Shawn Dixon.
The Northwest Missouri State University Speech and Debate team is on a roll to kickoff the second half of the season.
After gaining several finalists in Iowa last week, a team of five seniors traveled to the University of Nebraska to compete in the “Kansas in Nebraska” swing tournament. The team came away with numerous awards from both days of the tournament once again, which director of forensics Brian Swafford said was important as the season comes to a close.
“One of the things that we look for as we get to the end of the season is consistently placing well so that you know you’re doing the things you need to do to be able to have success at bigger, more competitive tournaments,” Swafford said. “One of the things that stands out is the fact that we’ve had students advance to final rounds in Poetry Interpretation multiple times, which means they’re doing what they need to do and making the adjustments they need to be in order to remain competitive.”
Nick Van Ross, a senior marketing major from Lee’s Summit, not only placed in Poetry Interpretation on both days of the tournament; he also won the championship in Extemporaneous Speaking on the first day. Swafford said Extemporaneous Speaking (or Extemp) is a more complicated event than most of the others.
“Extemp is an event that requires the ability to understand what’s going on in current events and be able to formulate a response to a question and deliver the answer in an original speech within a relatively short period of time,” Swafford explained. “Nick, as a debater and limited preparation event competitor, can take information and synthesize it into a coherent, and often entertaining, speech that audiences respond well to.
“It was really one of those things he felt proud of himself for doing. Given the way the tournaments were laid out, he had four events in one flight, and he could only do three of them. So we chose to do extemp the first day, and I always say, if you can only do something once, you might as well win.”
For Van Ross, who is nearing the end of his competitive career in speech and debate, it was a bit of a throwback.
“I actually had won that tournament in extemp my freshman year,” Van Ross said. “It reminded me that extemp is still one of my better events.
“It was a competitive tournament, and going into the final, I was nervous because the questions would be about stocks and investments, which is my weakest area. But I felt like I gave good knowledge, and it was the best speech I’ve ever given on the subject.”
Senior Emily Meyers, a Maryville native, found herself in relatively new finals territory this weekend as she advanced in Dramatic Interpretation on the second day of competition. Her piece takes an interesting narrative turn.
“It’s about Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, speaking from heaven about what she believes her book did for society, but how there’s still so much hate and racism in today’s world,” Meyers said. “I have been working on it with coaches very hard, so it’s great to see some of that pay off.”
An annual co-hosting venture between Nebraska and Kansas State University, the tournament is hosted In Lincoln during odd years and in Manhattan (then called the “Nebraska in Kansas” swing) during even years. Complete results are as follows:
Day one, hosted by Kansas State University:
Senior Ve’Shawn Dixon, Kansas City, Kansas: Sixth place, Extemporaneous Speaking.
Senior Emily Meyers, Maryville: Third place, Persuasive Speaking.
Senior Mersadie Moore, Kansas City, Missouri: Fifth place, Poetry Interpretation.
Senior Nick Van Ross, Lee’s Summit: Tournament Champion, Extemporaneous Speaking; fourth place, Poetry Interpretation.
Day two, hosted by the University of Nebraska at Lincoln:
Meyers: Sixth place, Dramatic Interpretation.
Van Ross: Sixth place, Poetry Interpretation.
The Speaking Bearcat debate teams will travel to the Border Wars tournament hosted at Kansas Wesleyan University to compete in Public Forum Debate this Friday.