OC STUDENTS WIN HONORS AT
OXNARD COLLEGE FALL SPEECH TOURNAMENT
Oxnard College students Patricia Arana, Maria Carvajal and Mario Arana triumphed at the Fall 2008 Speech Tournament held December 2, 2008, at Oxnard College. In all, 94 students registered to the competition and the following winners emerged in the three categories of Informative Speaking, Persuasive Speaking, and Oral Interpretation:
Informative:
1st Patricia Arana
2nd Laura Tomlinson
3rd Andres Perez
Persuasive:
1st Maria Carvajal
2nd Sylvia Ramirez
3rd Ryan Frye
Oral Interpretation:
1st Mario Arana
2nd CJ Butler
3rd Ben Thurman
Each of the final winners had to face off against other talented speakers in their categories and survive the first round before reaching the finals. The subjects of their speeches ranged from interpretive readings of dramatic works to advocating for political issues or topics like population control and lowering the drinking age to 18 years.
“It was a very busy fall semester and I almost considered not having it, but I thought about the students and decided to go ahead and have the tournament,” said Oxnard College speech instructor Amy London, who has coordinated the tournaments since 2005. Despite the absence of her mentor, longtime Oxnard College and Moorpark College speech instructor Roland Glover, who retired last semester, she was able to count on the help of new adjunct speech professors Molly Conway, Leslie Radford and Schuyler McKaig for help in motivating students to sign up.
“The objective of the tournament is to recognize the skills of our students and highlight the importance of public speaking,” said Ms. London. “There are bigger forensics tournaments at other colleges and universities but this is special for Oxnard College.”
Following the results, the students and judges shared pizza, cookies and beverages as the awards were presented.
“I also want to thank the judges who participated,” said Ms. London. They included: Judy Kleiner, Mati Sanchez, Della Brownlow, Shelley Savren, Teresa Bonham, Chris Mainzer, Vern Simmen, Douglas Singleton, Mary Jones, Cathy Garnica, Peggy Smith, Leslie Radford, Sunil Trivedi and Molly Conway. |
