UK Forensics Grand Champions at Berea College Tournament

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 26, 2015) — The University of Kentucky Forensics team retained its title as Grand Champion of the John G. Fee memorial tournament hosted annually by Berea College.

The tournament, which features competition in both individual speaking events as well as debate, awards the title of Grand Champion to the team with the most sweepstakes points from those two halves of the tournament. The team also won the large school division of debate sweepstakes as part of this overall team award.

In addition to the team successes, many individual competitors achieved personal bests at this tournament. Members of UK Forensics won four different event categories and earned an equal number of qualifications for the National Forensic Association national tournament in April. Senior Abel Rodriguez III also placed fourth in the individual sweepstakes competition for public speaking events.

Students from UK also achieved the following successes:

After Dinner Speaking

            2^nd Place – Abel Rodriguez III

Duo Interpretation

            3^rd Place – Rachel Brase and Megan Wagner

            4^th Place – Dianté Elcock and Kaylon Kennedy

            6^th Place – Abel Rodriguez III and Megan Wagner

Impromptu Counseling

            1^st Place – Abel Rodriguez III

            4^th Place – Megan Wagner

Impromptu Speaking

            1^st Place – Abel Rodriguez III

            4^th Place – Logan Hurley

Novice Parliamentary Debate

            1^st Place – Dianté Elcock and Veronica Scott

            Quarterfinalists – Matt Karijolic and Talha Muhammad

            2^nd Place Speaker – Veronica Scott

            3^rd Place Speaker – Matt Karijolic

Novice Public Debate

            1^st Place – Dianté Elcock

            Quarterfinalist – Matt Karijolic

            3^rd Place Speaker – Dianté Elcock

Open Parliamentary Debate

            Semifinalists – Logan Hurley and Abel Rodriguez III

            2^nd Place Speaker – Abel Rodriguez III

Open Public Debate

            Quarterfinalist – Logan Hurley

            Quarterfinalist – Kaylon Kennedy

            3^rd Place Speaker – Logan Hurley

            4^th Place Speaker – Kaylon Kennedy

Persuasive Speaking

            6^th Place – Sam Northrup

Poetry Interpretation

            7^th Place – Dianté Elcock

The University of Kentucky Forensics Team’s next competition will be the Chief Justice Invitational held at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.

UK Forensics is a student organization in the School of Information Science. The team competes in 12 different public speaking events and three forms of debate. To find out more about the team, visit ukforensics.com.

MEDIA CONTACT: Blair Hoover, (859) 257-6398; blair.hoover@uky.edu