NDSU's Lincoln Speech and Debate team earned numerous team and individual honors at the Dakotas Intercollegiate Forensics Association Tournament Feb. 19-20 at Northern State University, Aberdeen, South Dakota. The event is a combined North and South Dakota collegiate speech and debate tournament.
NDSU placed second in overall team sweepstakes, first in parliamentary debate and had the top two speakers of the tournament.
Gabriel Eronmosele, a sophomore nursing major from Abuja, Nigeria, and Mathew Justin, a freshman mechanical engineering major from New Brighton, Minnesota, debated nine rounds of parliamentary debate over two days against 19 other teams from North and South Dakota to earn first place.
NDSU had the top two speakers at the tournament. Ruben Flores, a sophomore music and International Studies major from East Grand Forks, Minnesota, was named top speaker, earning first in individual sweepstakes, while Eronmosele was second. Eronmosele also earned one of two spots to represent North Dakota at the Interstate Oratory Contest, the oldest speech contest in the nation, with his fifth place in Persuasive Speaking. His speech will be published.
Eronmosele also placed first in extemporaneous and fifth in persuasive and Justin placed fourth in extemporaneous and fifth in drama.
Flores placed first in poetry, first in drama, second in program of oral interpretation and third in prose.
Hanna Stout, a freshman English Education major from Devils Lake, North Dakota, placed first in prose and second in duo with her partner Mariah Spillers, a junior musical theater major from Anoka, Minnesota.
Spillers also placed third in poetry, fourth in program of oral interpretation and fifth in prose.
Jon Bell-Clement, a junior double major in zoology and art from Fargo, placed third in drama and fourth in prose.
Jared Melville, a freshman business administration major from Fargo, placed fifth in informative and fifth in poetry.
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