Local News

BY JOE BLASDEL, SPEECH AND DEBATE COACH McKendree University finished in 5th place in overall program sweepstakes at Webster University’s Gorlok Gala and took home 21 individual awards. Fifty colleges and universities, including Boise State University, Washington University, and Ohio State University, attended the tournament on January 23-25. Representing McKendree were seniors Rebecca Blake, Josh Fleming, and Spencer Marcum; juniors Lauren Apetz and Quinn McRoberts; sophomore Katie Reining; and first-years Alex Baldwin, Austin Brown, Emeri Farnam, Beth Graham, Brett Hanna, David Junge, Adam Kaul, Jode Luster, Briar North, Ariel Rodriguez, Gage Simmons, and Hannah Zickefoose. “The team really came through this weekend,” said Stephen Hagan.  “In particular, our first-year students had exc...

BY CHELSEY WHEELER Contributing Writer Last month, the community of McKendree University was shocked by the e-mail announcement informing the campus that one of our fellow students had recently been the victim of hate crimes - criminal acts which are motivated by biases against someone’s gender, race, ethnicity, appearance, religion, sexual orientation or perceived membership in other stigmatized social groups. The female student involved was targeted twice in sexually explicit and racially prejudiced incidents that are believed to have been motivated by her involvement in Confront the Roots, a new student organization at McKendree dedicated to encourage open communication about black/white racial issues. Public safety was notified that she was verbally assaulted on campus and shortly ther...