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L&C Speech closes October with “Halloween Thing” championship

The Lewis & Clark speech team finished an exceptional October by winning the “Halloween Thing” team title.
November 01, 2021
The Lewis & Clark speech contingent at The Halloween Thing
The Lewis & Clark speech contingent at “The Halloween Thing”

The Lewis & Clark speech team closed out October with a team victory at “The Halloween Thing”, a tournament hosted by Doane University and the University of Nebraska-Omaha on October 30. The team title was L&C’s first of the year, and it came against an impressive field of competitors which included eight of the top fifteen schools in the nation from last year.

Leading the way for Lewis & Clark was Eden Kenney (’22), who was the top overall individual speaker at the tournament. Kenney won first place in Informative Speaking and second place in Persuasive Speaking, and teamed with Catie McCarty (’24) to take first place in Duo Interpretation.

Close behind Kenney was Hope Smothers (’22), who finished as the second place individual speaker. Smothers was first in Prose Interpretation, second in Dramatic Interpretation and third in Poetry Interpretation. Aaron Lutz (’22) turned in three finals appearances as well, finishing second in Impromptu Speaking, third in Extemporaneous Speaking and fourth in After-Dinner Speaking.

Six more speech competitors advanced to final rounds, including Grace Elkhal (’23), second place in Program Oral Interpretation); Gavin Patchet (’23), third place Informative Speaking, fifth place After-Dinner Speaking; Danny Brady (’23), fourth place Informative Speaking; Kenneth Leja (’22), fourth place Impromptu Speaking; Ruby Guzman (’25), fifth place Poetry Interpretation; and Tiani Ertel (’25), sixth place Prose Interpretation.

The team title caps off an incredible October for Lewis & Clark speech/debate. Individual highlights from earlier in the month include Alex Webb (’22) as second place and top speaker at the Steve Hunt Classic, hosted by Lewis & Clark, and Molly Mahoney (’23) finishing as second place individual speaker at the Pacific University tournament.

The LD squad will compete Nov 6-7 at the Illinois State University Redbird Classic before the entire squad returns to competition at the Mahaffey Memorial, the oldest speech/debate tournament in the nation, hosted by Linfield University.

Speech and Debate is located in John R. Howard Hall on the Undergraduate Campus.
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