Bethany McDaniel, Viking Fusion News Producer

Berry has a forensics team? Does that mean they do stuff like on CSI?

Not quite. When you’re on Berry’s campus, forensics typically relates to the highly prestigious and competitive speech team.

As Dr. Randy Richardson, the head coach of Berry’s forensics team, likes to point out multiple times during his classroom lectures, Berry has a national award winning forensic team that currently holds over a dozen trophies, filling up not only Laughlin but also spilling over into Evans too.

Now, Dr. Richardson has even more to brag about.

Senior Kim Treese was recently awarded Berry’s first international champion as she swept the floor in Antwerp, Belgium at the International Forensic Association Championship Tournament on March 10-12.

Kim competed in five events total. She placed fourth with her Persuasion speech and as a semi-finalist in both her Prose and Dramatic Interpretation speeches. Most notably, her last speech, “A Tour of Antwerp” was selected by the Mayor of Antwerp as the grand winner.

With Kim’s performance, she placed Berry in sixth place out of a pool of 18 other colleges and universities spanning many nationalities.

Kim, with a major in Visual Communication and a minor in Spanish, is studying abroad in Spain this semester. She plans on returning back to Rome by April to compete in another forensics tournament and in order to walk at graduation.