WHS Speech book

  • By Tami Lange
  • June 30, 2013
  • 502
                        
HED: A book of well-spoken people SUMMARY: WHS Speech & Debate history detailed in new offering by father-son duo By Tami Lange Noble. Critchfield. Amster. Grosjean. Dix. Freedlander. Shapiro. Aside from being the names of some of Wooster’s best-known movers and shakers of the past century, these families have something else in common – membership in the Wooster High School Speech & Debate Team. You’ll find those names – and many more -- in “A Good Town Speaking Well,” co-authored by two men who have been there. The father-son team of Dan and Morgan Bostdorff O’Rourke recently finished the two-year project of compiling the team’s 100-plus-year history, which included combing through old files, scrapbooks and the Wayne County Public Library’s genealogy department, along with interviews with team members and coaches, past and present. Morgan O’Rourke, a WHS graduate who now attends Ohio Wesleyan University, was one of the team’s national tournament qualifiers, while his father is a veteran of the speech and debate wars and currently is an associate professor of communications at Ashland University. The project turned into a family affair, as Morgan’s mother, Denise Bostdorff – herself a professor of communication studies at The College of Wooster – came up with the title, while younger sister Devin took the back cover photo. That photo shows one of the signs along a Wooster highway that tells passers- by: “WHS Speech and Debate -- state champions in 2001, 2002 and 2006.” The sign itself is evidence of the community support the team has gotten, Dan O’Rourke said, beginning in the early days with the Freedlander Cup and moving on through the years to the Wooster Rotary’s sponsorship of WHS’s annual tournament and the Noble Foundation’s one-for-three match of dollars donated to the newer Wooster Speech & Debate Foundation. The book itself is part of a fundraising effort: 20 percent of every $20 sale will go to the foundation. A launch party will be hosted by the Wooster Book Company on July 27 at 2 p.m. “Everyone knows pieces of (the team history),” Dan O’Rourke said. “But they don’t know the whole story.” Some of that history is told in numbers: * 63 appearances at the National Forensic League tournament – more than any other school in the country * 26 consecutive Ohio High School Speech League District Championships (1987-2013) * Three state Championships * Seven National Champions * Four Hall of Fame coaches (Russell Caldwell : 1930-1946; Robert Pollock: 1951-1965; Richard Nadelin: 1970-1980; and Sharen Althoff 1988-2007) Being a member of the team “was without a doubt, my best experience in high school, “ said Morgan O’Rourke, who competed in Lincoln-Douglas Debate, “just hanging out with the team between rounds … and the bonding that happens there.” To that end, he contributed a chapter to the book looking at the team from the student’s point of view. His dad offered a similar accounting of the view from the parent’s perspective. Both men credited former national champion Walter Grosjean with being a catalyst for the project. Grosjean, whose granddaughter is now a team member, won the top prize in extemporaneous speaking in 1947 with the topic: “The Truman Doctrine: Will it lead to war or peace?” A scrapbook kept my Grosjean’s mother, Alice, contained her son’s telegram home: “Your loving son is now the extemp champion of the United States. Will come home on Sunday night train with monster trophy.” The telegram remains, Dan O’Rourke said, although the “monster trophy” has been lost. The book also includes chapters dedicated to those people and things that are unique to the team, including the Cow Chip Bingo fundraiser and the Snowmageddon during the 2010 district tournament. There also are shout-outs to some distinguished team members: Rhodes Scholar Andrew Lanham, top forensic league point earner David Funk and the school’s first African American team member, William Miner. Miner, a member of the Class of 1942, is now 92, “retired and living in New Jersey,” Dan O’Rourke said. He has two doctorates and had a long, successful career with the United Nations and the Agency for International Development. With their work complete, Dan O’Rourke said, they are happy to offer the public a book that recounts a “team that operates at an incredibly high level.” He also credits the Wooster Book Company and David Wiesenberg for helping create a quality book about a quality team. “This is,” he said, “a local book for local people – so you can only get it at the Wooster Book Company.”


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