{"id":18586,"date":"2026-04-29T20:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T20:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/?p=18586"},"modified":"2026-04-29T20:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T20:33:10","slug":"communication-department-hosts-third-annual-public-speaking-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/blog\/2026\/04\/29\/communication-department-hosts-third-annual-public-speaking-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Communication Department hosts Third Annual Public Speaking Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Western Carolina University\u2019s Department of Communication held its third annual \u201cSpeak Your Mind\u201d public speaking competition on Thursday, April 23.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This competition is intended to showcase and encourage the public speaking skills of students who have taken the Comm 201 course within the last two semesters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>\u201c<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u2018Speak Your Mind\u2019 public speaking competition started out as a way to give more awareness for what the Foundations of Communication 201 class does, for their advocacy and persuasive speeches. and it allows students to really showcase their voice and be rewarded for their eloquent public speaking capabilities,\u201d said Mykala Anderson, event organizer and emcee.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This year\u2019s winners were Katie Borke in first place, Nancy Ken-Otomi in second place, and Ben Edwards in third place. The winning students were rewarded with $300 for first place, $200, for second place, and $100 for third place.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This year\u2019s competition was organized by Anderson, a senior Communication student. She created the event along with WCU Communication alum Cora Haste in 2024. This will be the last public speaking competition she organizes, but hopes to continue the tradition in the coming years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIt&#8217;s probably one of my favorite things that I&#8217;ve created, and so I am always super impressed at how it goes, and to see how we grow the event every year,\u201d said Anderson.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stay tuned to @wcucommdepartment on Instagram to catch the next \u201cSpeak Your Mind\u201d public speaking competition.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Western Carolina University\u2019s Department of Communication held its third annual \u201cSpeak Your Mind\u201d public speaking competition on Thursday, April 23. This competition is intended to showcase and encourage the public [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3416,"featured_media":18587,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[329,353,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-department-news","category-events","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18586"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18589,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18586\/revisions\/18589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}