Eagles Sweep Best Speaker Awards at Portland Debate

March 6, 2005

60 of the regions top university students gathered in down town Portland at the Portland State University to match wit and intellect for the Ben Padrow memorial debate and speech tournament Saturday and Sunday, March 4 and 5.

In addition to wins and losses, judges rate debaters on speaking ability and the top five are given awards. At the concluding awards ceremony Sunday afternoon the best speakers at the tournament were honored with plaques.

Northwest University students took all but one of the best speaker awards:

Jordan Goddard - captain elect for next year - won a wood gavel for ranking as the top speaker at the tournament.
Current team captain Sara Boyd won third place best speaker.
Casey Digennaro won fourth place best speaker.
Nathan Chambers won fifth place best speaker.
And Kortney Thoma ranked in sixth place.

Nine schools - including the University of Washington, Oregon State, Reed College, Pacific Lutheran University and Lewis and Clark College - brought some of their best students to debate topics assigned twenty minutes before each round.

Debaters had to be prepared to argue both sides of any controversy. Some of the topics at PSU included Social Security reform, Tort reform, Russia, Iran and capital punishment. One topic focused on philosophy and read: This house believes that debate is not a tool for discovering the truth.

Three of the five two person teams sent by Northwest won quarter finalist awards.

The next tournament is the National Championship held at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas beginning on March 18.