Your future, our focus
POWELL, Wyo. - It’s not a matter of climbing to the top for the Northwest College Forensics Squad. It’s all about staying there.
The NWC parliamentary debaters are ranked first in the nation among community colleges. They’re not doing too shabby against the country’s four-year schools either – the ranking changes weekly, but NWC is consistently in the top 10 and showed up as high as third early in the semester.
Their performance at the Jan. 20-22 Rimrock Classic at Rocky Mountain College didn’t hurt. Of the 15 first place awards handed out at the tournament, Northwest claimed 12.
In the open parliamentary debate category, NWC students grabbed six of the top-10 individual speaker awards, with Laci Kennedy of Townsend, Mont., taking top honors.
In novice debate, Alex Duvall of Gillette and Haley Patterson, Sheridan, advanced to the final round, along with a NWC/Casper College hybrid team that included NWC student Walter Belleau of Glasgow, Mont. All three students tied for first place team honors. Duvall, Patterson and WonKyun Kim of Seoul, Korea, also picked up speaker awards.
Northwest competed for only the second time in World Schools Style debating, a combination of the British Parliamentary and Australia-Asian debating formats. Two NWC teams made it to the championship round and were granted a tie for first place. Those teams were Kennedy and Shelby Moore (Powell) against Justin Rogers (Buffalo) and Chase Werbelow (Powell).
Proving their versatility, the debaters and their fellow teammates scored 26 individual events awards to boot, with Kennedy taking firsts across the board in communication analysis, persuasive speaking, informative speaking and extemporaneous speaking.
More details about the squad’s tournament results are available online at http://www.northwestcollege.edu/forensics.
The NWC Forensics Team is back in action Jan. 28-30 in Cheyenne at the Fiesta Flatland Swing.