Students filled Tehama Hall on Saturday to participate in the Rookie Tournament, an all-day speechmaking competition for students who currently are taking lower-division communication classes.

The tournament was attended by students from two courses: “Individual Public Speaking” and “Argumentation and Debate.”

The tournament has been held every semester since it began in 1992 or 1993, said Sue Peterson a communication professor.

“It started as a recruitment tool for the Speech and Debate Team and a way to provide the department with a student opportunity for the large numbers of general education students taking those classes,” Peterson said. “Some students realize they are interested in communication studies as a major or minor through doing an event like this one.”

The competition had two preliminary rounds of competition in speech, and four preliminary rounds in debate. The four events were:

Informative Speaking

Persuasive Speaking

Impromptu Speaking

Lincoln-Douglas Debate

If a student was one of the top competitors, he or she moved on to the elimination

rounds. Students used speeches that they had written earlier this semester for the tournament.

“All I needed to do was briefly review my speech once or twice before it was time to deliver it,” said Katelyn Alvarez, a freshman pre-nursing major. “Because I practice it so many times for my class, I remembered a lot about the speech.”

If students stayed for the entire event, they received extra credit.

The event ended with an awards ceremony for the winners of the competition.

Megan Bowser can be reached at [email protected] or @theorion_news on Twitter.