A Speech Bowl Event
Posted by Starr Lee on April 4th, 2016
A Speech Bowl Event
February 27, 2015
By Starr Lee
On February 27, 2016 the University of Wisconsin Whitewater Speech Team hosted its annual Forensics Speech Bowl competition on campus. With over 587 high school students in attendance from 40 different schools in the surrounding area.
*The Speech Bowl has been around for several years and the UW- Whitewater Speech Team Director, Jim Disrude has kept on this tradition because “it is important to give back to the high school community and is a great time for recruiting students interested in collegiate forensics.”
The competition began at 7:40 a.m., with registration in the University Center. There was a total of 600 entries.
Coaches led their teams to find quiet places to do warm-ups, practice pieces, and eat breakfast. However, one can imagine the difficulty of finding a silent area in a building full of people who participate in speech as an activity.
The Whitewater speech team ran around helping students find rooms, answering questions, and listening to any concerns one might have. Whitewater Sophmore and speech team member Heather Patterson, describes the experience as “ an incredible energy because everyone is so excited to be there and I think the college setting makes it so much more fun and unique than your typical high school forensics tournament.”
Student’s compete against each other in categories such as Farrago, Prose, Radio, 4-Minute Speaking, Moments in History, and Poetry. Each student is assigned a room along with up to seven other competitors all performing at their best to gain a first place rank.
After three rounds, results of finals was revealed as students gathered around in bunches screaming, hugging, and crying from tears of joy.
At the award ceremony Senior, Hannah Farajpanahi performed her award winning poetry piece in the young auditorium packed with high-schoolers. “You spend so much time cultivating the perfect performance so you can really communicate with your audience, but you usually do not see the effect your message has on people, this was overwhelming” says Farajphanai after recieving a standing ovation.
Forensics is an activity that can help students succeed socially, academically, and professionally. These forensciators love what they do and it shines through in their performances.