Campus to sponsor speech tournament

    NE Campus will be host to a national speech tournament next month.

   The national tournament is sponsored annually by Phi Rho Pi, the national honor society for two-year college speech competitors.

   Phi Rho Pi has over 130 member colleges.

   Students from these schools will compete in debate, interpretation and public speaking contests.

   NE Campus will be supported at the tournament by the other Texas schools affiliated with Phi Rho Pi.

   “We’re expecting between 800 and 1000 students from all over the country to be at the tournament,” Lisa Benedetti, NE speech instructor and forensics team sponsor, said.

   Because none of the TCC campuses have sufficient facilities to house an event of this size, the tournament will take place at the Ramada Plaza hotel, near the water gardens in downtown Fort Worth.

   This will be the first Phi Rho Pi tournament held in Fort Worth, and only the second ever in Texas, Benedetti said.

   “We’re excited to be able to show people what Texas is all about,” she said.

   NE Campus first bid to hold the tournament two years ago. The competition for the tournament was especially difficult and included larger cities, such as Chicago and Seattle, Benedetti said.

   Benedetti says she also expects her NE forensics team to compete well at the national level.

   “We recently enjoyed a lot of success at the state tournament in San Antonio,” she said.

   For more information on the tournament, call 817-515-6986 or visit the official tournament website at http://dl.tccd.net/convention.