Two students from the UT Debate and Forensics team won several awards at the Cosmic Country Breakdown and the ASU Mountain Forensic Tournament last week.

David Youngblood won second and third places in impromptu speech performance and fifth place in persuasion. Lisa Keylonwon third place in persuasion, second place in impromptu and sixth place in communication analysis twice.

Kristin Kerns, coach of the Debate and Forensics Team, was pleased with the performance of the team. Members participating in the debate also participated in the Pejaver Debates at MTSU.

I was very excited, Kerns said. It’s always good to get those first awards out of the way. Now we can look forward to the rest of the season.

The Forensic team will be traveling to Alabama this weekend for their next tournament.

I am sure they will win more awards there, Kerns said.

Most members of the team are also enrolled in the Speech Communication 400 class. It is a topics class that has a special section devoted to debate and forensics.

For the most part, our team is in that class because they get three credit hours, Kerns said. Some people do it on a voluntary basis, though.

Students in the class pick a specialty in debate or forensics and prepare speeches and projects to present to the class each week. The members use these times to critique each other and prepare for upcoming tournaments.

The class, which will be offered this spring, is attended by students from a variety of majors, Kerns said.

It’s a great experience for anybody interested in public speaking, politics, business and public relations, Kerns said.