Katie Armes

Review staff writer

Four members of the Linfield Forensics team placed in their individual events at the 76th annual Mahaffey Forensics Tournament on Nov. 14-16.

Twenty-three schools, most from the Northwest, competed in the tournament.

“It’s mainly a regional draw, although this year we had schools from as far away as Florida,” Jackson Miller, director of forensics and associate professor of theatre and communication arts, said.

Competitors participated in events ranging from British Parliamentary debate to impromptu and prepared speeches. Senior Kate Peterson placed second in a new event: Mad Libs Interpretation, in which a Mad Lib created by the competitor is read aloud and performed.

“I had phrases like ‘howling like a manatee’ and all kinds of silly, crazy things,” Peterson said.

Peterson also placed fourth in Open Poetry, fifth in Open Program of Oral Interpretation and second in Open Duo with her teammate, sophomore Darren Valenta.

In British Parliamentary Debate, the duo of sophomore Colin Jones and senior Morgan St. Jean made it to the semi-finals.

“Even those that didn’t reach finals were very competitive in their preliminary rounds,” Miller said.

One extra challenge Linfield students faced was both hosting and competing in the tournament.

Team members worked to set up tables and chairs and enter information about competitors into computers throughout the week before the tournament, and they were also responsible for setting and cleaning up.

“We had a good tournament overall; everything ran on time, and we got a lot of nice compliments about how it was hosted,” Miller said.

Miller was also responsible for selecting the debate topics, which generally revolve around current events and, therefore, are arranged shortly before tournaments.

The Forensics team practices events twice a week, and students also attend individual coaching hours. Students put in hours of work researching and writing their presentations and staying up to speed on current events.

The work was worth it in the end for Peterson, who uses poems that emphasize the importance of reading, one of her own passions, in one of her presentations.

“For me, this is an opportunity to get out a message that’s important to me,” Peterson said.

The tournament is named after Roy Mahaffey for his work at Linfield and in the national forensics community. He especially helped to develop some of the nationally used rules for some of the interpretive events.

“He was, for many years, a cornerstone not only for our department but a pioneer in the world of forensics,” Miller said.

The Mahaffey Memorial Tournament was the fourth for the forensics team this fall. They will compete in eight to 10 tournaments this year.