The best of Southeastern’s fall 2016 Business and Professional Speaking students competed on Tuesday, Nov. 29. The first Public Speaking Showcase was hosted by the Department of Art, Communication and Theatre in the recital hall at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday evening.

Speakers included sophomore political science major, James Sutton, freshman math education major, Jessica Robison, freshman communication major, Nate Hodson, sophomore accounting major, Carissa Winstead, freshman art major, Tiffany Morgan, junior biology major, Thomas Olive and freshman aviation major, Elizabeth Resh.

Dr. Shannon McCraw, the chair of Art, Communication and Theatre, and Dr. Randy Clark, professor of communication, presided over the event.

The event was meant to showcase the best of the Business and Professional Speaking classes. Student’s speeches were pieces they had originally prepared for class.

Performers were to speak for five to seven minutes and either persuade or inform the audience. The speakers had a limit of five notecards and were discouraged from using any visual aides. In addition, the speeches had to include researched material.

Judges, Dr. Kathleen Hardgrove, Professor Kelly Gamble and safety major, John Sasser, assessed “the speaker’s ability to effectively follow the conventions” including structure, research, organization and delivery techniques according to the showcase program.

Sutton won first place with a speech on the physicality, ideology and spirituality of Jeet Kun Do, a type of martial arts used by Bruce Lee. Robison won second with her speech on self-harm. Olive came in third with his speech on incorporating Native American studies into general education.

The top three received trophies and the winner of the event won a pizza party for their section of Business and Professional Speaking.