Contact: Sasha Steinberg

STARKVILLE, Miss.— For the second consecutive year, the African American Studies program and Speech and Debate Council at Mississippi State are teaming up to sponsor the university’s fourth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Oratorical Contest.

Open to all full-time MSU undergraduate students, the contest features original speeches on King’s life and legacy. Each speech must be no more than five minutes long, include basic organizational elements, be performed with limited notes (no more than three 3x5 notecards), and have a title that is stated prior to the performance.

Applications are due Wednesday [Feb. 8] and may be obtained by contacting council adviser and speech coach Cheryl Chambers at cchambers@comm.msstate.edu. Finalists also must submit a typed copy of their speech to Chambers by Feb. 15.

Coaching sessions will be available for contestants from Feb. 9-18. Preliminary rounds will take place Feb. 13 in McComas Hall, with the top five competitors advancing to the final round. The final round and awards ceremony will be held at 6 p.m. on Feb. 16 in Thompson’s Hall first-floor Tully Auditorium.

A panel of judges will select first, second and third-place winners. To be awarded in the form of an MSU scholarship, prizes are as follows: first place, $500; second place, $250; and third place, $100.

The contest is one of numerous events being held in celebration of the African American Studies program’s 10th anniversary at MSU.

A communication department instructor, Chambers is a 2006 summa cum laude MSU communication graduate. She also holds a master’s degree in communication studies from the University of Alabama.

In addition to Chambers, council participants also benefit from the guidance of debate coach Brett Harvey. An attorney and the university’s director of Title IX and equal employment opportunity programs, he is a Harvard University Law School graduate.

For more information about the contest or MSU’s Speech and Debate Council, contact Chambers at CChambers@comm.msstate.edu or Harvey at brett.harvey@msstate.edu.

Follow the group on Facebook and Twitter @msuspeechdebate, as well as Instagram @msu_speechanddebate.

Part of the College of Arts and Sciences, MSU’s African American Studies program offers courses leading to a minor in African American Studies. For more, visit www.aas.msstate.edu or follow on Twitter @MSStateAAS.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.