At a recent online asynchronous tournament (OATS), Truman Speech earned an impressive 3rd Place finish out of 53 teams. According to the tournament hosts, Outspoken Culture, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to providing an equitable, inclusive, and empowering platform for collegiate speech competitions, this tournament was the second largest in all of OATS history. Truman’s team has been steadily collecting qualifications for the National Forensic Association (NFA) national tournament in April, with 7 speech members and 4 debaters qualified across 31 individual slots.
While Truman students begin to prepare for finals, the team plans to round out their semester with three more competitions within the next month to stay polished over the coming breaks.
In addition to the most recent OATS tournament, the team also traveled to two in-person tournaments at the beginning of November. See below and on the team’s Instagram (@Trumanforensicunion) for the results:
OATS #3
Out of 180 students, speech team member Briggs Maynor (’26) finished 2nd Place in Individual Sweepstakes. He received this recognition due to placing 2nd in Poetry and 3rd in Dramatic Interpretation.
Alex Peterson (’26) was also among the top point earners at the tournament, placing 4th in Individual Sweepstakes. She received 2nd in After-Dinner Speaking, 4th in Informative, and 6th in Communication Analysis.
Ashton Mullen (’26) placed 2nd in Extemporaneous Speaking out of 46 competitors.
Finally, freshman and novice team member, Emery McEvoy (’28), was in the top 12 in Impromptu Speaking out of 77 competitors, the largest event at the tournament.
Redbird LD Tournament
A group of debaters traveled to Bloomington, IL on November 4-6 for the annual Lincoln-Douglas debate tournament hosted by Illinois State University. Truman walked away with three new qualifications to NFA.
Sophomore Payten Luaders (’27) was a Semifinalist (TOP 4) in the Varsity division and earned 5th Place Varsity Speaker.
Ben Croat (’27) was the 2nd Place tournament runner-up in the Junior Varsity division and was 4th Place JV Speaker.
Freshman Ryan Franklin (’28) was a Semifinalist (TOP 4) in the JV division, losing on a 2-1 decision. Ryan also accumulated enough points to earn 3rd Place JV Speaker.
Sawyer Partney (’28) was the 3rd Place Speaker in the Novice division.
Norton IE Tournament
The same weekend the debate team traveled to ISU, members of the speech team went to Peoria, IL for the Norton individual events tournament hosted by Bradley University.
Alex Peterson was 5th in After-Dinner Speaking out of 39 competitors and made it to the Semifinal (TOP 16) round of Impromptu out of 68 participants.
Emery McEvoy was the Tournament Champion in Novice Communication Analysis, in addition to placing 3rd in Novice After-Dinner Speaking and 6th in Novice Impromptu.
Freshman Mikayla Hammer (’28) also placed 4th in Novice Impromptu out of 38 competitors.
The Truman Forensics Team is housed within the newly merged Department of Communication and Theatre Arts, giving students the opportunity to compete in both speech and debate activities across the state of Missouri and throughout the United States. If you are interested in joining the team or learning more about competitive public speaking or debate, please contact Director of the team, Dr. Ben Davis, at bdavis@truman.edu, or Assistant Director, Professor Scott Koslow, at skoslow@truman.edu.