Kansas City Kansas Community College

For a first year coach, 2008-09 has been a whirlwind of success for Kansas City Kansas Community College forensics coach Amy Arellano.

In fact, in a matter of just two months, Arellano assembled a three-member KCKCC team that brought home the Quality Award, the most prestigious award handed out at the 27th Annual Novice National Individual Events Tournament hosted by the University of Houston March 6-8.

“Out of 34 colleges and universities represented at the tournament including Florida State, Arizona State, the Air Force Academy and other community colleges in Kansas, KCKCC was recognized as the top quality program at the tournament,” said Arellano. “The hardest award to win at the tournament, it was also the first time in the tournament’s 27-year history that it has gone to a newly revitalized program. Not only did we win the award, we had more than double the number of points of the runner-up team.”

The award is determined by the efficiency of team members in each of events and each of their rounds and then divided by the number of team members.

A freshman from Blue Springs who came to KCKCC because of the forensics program, Paul Carrell led KCKCC to a third place finish in the Medium Entry Sweepstakes by placing first in Prose Interpretation, first in Poetry, second in Program of Oral Interpretation and fourth in Dramatic Interpretation.

Fredrick Collier, a sophomore from Wyandotte, finished third in Poetry Interpretation while Chrissy Biondo, a frosh from Sumner Academy, was the last competitor out prior to the finals in Informative Speaking. A fourth team member, freshman Skye Reid of Baldwin, was not able to compete because she was performing in a lead role in the KCKCC Theatre Department’s production of the musical, “All Shook Up.”

The rapid success of the KCKCC team is magnified even more by the fact that Collier, Biondo and Reid all joined the team in January. Only Carrell competed both semesters.

“It’s taken a lot of hard work. The students have spent 20 to 40 hours a week to bring it to the level we’ve achieved,” says Arellano, who estimates she too puts in more than 20 hours a week on forensics.

Winning a national title comes on the heels of a runner-up finish in the Kansas Championships held earlier at Bethel College. In that event, Carrell placed first in Poetry and the Program of Oral Interpretation, second in Prose and fourth in Dramatic Interpretation. He also teamed with Skye Reid to place fourth in Duo Interpretation and by competing in five events, took first place in the Pentathlon over Kansas State.

Competing in five tournaments in the fall and five in the spring, KCKCC had students reach the final round of six in every event and in most tournaments, had multiple finalists.

The forensics success follows on the heels of the success of Coach Darren Elliott’s KCKCC debate team, which is gunning for a record sixth straight national championship – success that was a major factor in Arellano coming to KCKCC last fall. “I knew Darren Elliott from the national circuit and when I heard of a job opening, I wanted to be part of a program that has shown a lot of success,” says Arellano, who teaches public speaking and interpersonal in the Humanities and Fine Arts Division.

Because of the energy and fellowship shown during state competition, Arellano was elected Vice-President of the Kansas State Individual Event State Championship (KASIE) for 2010 and will serve as President for 2011.

A competitor in both forensics and debate while in high school in Waco, Texas, she also competed in both at Tyler Junior College and the University of Texas-Tyler where she won national and international championships in both. She also holds a Masters from Texas State University in San Marcos and has six years of coaching experience at Texas State and Tarrant Community College in Hurst, Texas, where her debate and forensics teams excelled at the national level.

In addition to teaching and coaching, Arellano also directed KCKCC’s recent production of the Vagina Monologues which raised more than $600 for the Friends of Yates Shelter for Battered Women in KCK.

Arellano will now team with Darren Elliott in the National Phi Rho Pi tournament in Portland, Ore., April 5-12. Not only are championships determined in both forensics and debate, there’s a national sweepstakes championship awarded to the team scoring the highest in the two combined events.