Forensic Union Takes Second at Debate Nationals

Continuing a long streak of successes at the National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) National Championship Tournament, students from Truman State University were once again at the top of their game at the 2005 Nationals at Texas Tech University (Lubbock, Texas), March 18-20. The Truman team was the runner-up to the National Champions from the University of California Berkeley in tournament sweepstakes. Seventy-one institutions competed in the tournament, in addition to international participants from Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. 

Truman also continued its streak of elimination rounds successes, placing four teams in elimination rounds for the sixth consecutive year. Tyson Helder, senior communication and political science double major from Sioux Falls, S.D., and Samuel Hodge, freshman political science and communication double major from Blue Springs, Mo., reached the quarterfinals of the tournament, thus making them among the top eight teams in the nation (out of a field of 212 two-person teams). Sara Archer, freshmen pre-business administration and pre-accounting double major from Riverside, Mo., and Matthew “Cody” Snyder, freshman political science and economics double major from Neosho, Mo., reached the double-octafinal round (the top 32 teams). The teams of Matthew Harms, senior economics major from Galesburg, Ill., and Ryan Walsh, senior philosophy and religion and communication double major from Cassville, Mo., and Todd Turner, freshman communication major from Chesterfield, Mo., and Stefani Wittenauer, sophomore communication and political science double major from Belleville, Ill., reached the triple-octafinals (top 64 teams). The tournament uses a gradual elimination process similar to the NCAA basketball tournaments. Teams must have a winning record to reach the elimination rounds. The eventual winner of the single-elimination process was Lewis and Clark College (Portland, Ore.) which took possession of the championship cup, earned by Truman in 2004.

Additionally, out of a field of 424 individual speakers, Helder ranked 13th and Hodge 16th. Truman also placed 16th in season-long sweepstakes, which is a system which measures year-long performance at invitational tournaments.