MOORPARK : Forensics Team 3rd in National Event

The Moorpark College forensics team won third place among 76 community colleges at a national speech tournament last week, the 20th time in the team’s 21-year history that it has placed in the top three places in nationwide competition.

The 14-member team won 10 gold, three silver and 14 bronze medals in competitions ranging from poetry interpretation to team debate at the Phi Rho Pi Junior College National Championships held in St. Louis from March 27 through Friday.

Moorpark freshman Brandi Shearer, 22, won two gold medals, one for a 10-minute prepared speech on theater for the deaf.

Shearer said her performance was inspired by her 16-year-old sister, who has suffered brain damage and uses sign language to communicate.

“I would think about her,” Shearer said. “She was kind of my extra push.”

Shearer competed for the first time with the team this year. Only two of the team’s 14 members competed last year.

Moorpark College speech professor Richard Strong said he is particularly proud of the group’s showing in light of their lack of experience.

“Probably more than any of my teams of the last 21 years, this one worked the hardest,” said Strong, who founded the college’s speech team in 1971.

Next year, eight members of the team will compete again.

“We expect to be even stronger,” Strong said.

Shearer said she enjoys the competitiveness of the discipline, particularly when she wins.

“It’s the best feeling to be standing when they call off all the bronzes and the silvers and they say all the rest are golds. And you’re still up there.”