West Chester Senior Earns Coveted Spot on All-American Forensics Team

Daniel Blomquist, a senior West Chester University Honors political science major from Monroeville, N.J., is one of only 16 students nationwide named to the American Forensic Association Individual Events All-American Team. This honor was bestowed upon him at the AFA National Individual Events Tournament held at the University of Texas at Austin April 4 through 7.

Blomquist is also the student speaker at the University’s spring commencement on Saturday, May 10.

In the AFA national individual events tournament in mid-April, Blomquist was a quarterfinalist (top 24) in Impromptu Speaking and a semifinalist (top 12) in Extemporaneous Speaking. He and the West Chester team just returned from the National Forensic Association national speech and debate championships April 17-21 at Tennessee State University in Nashville, where he again made the semifinals in Extemporaneous Speaking. At that event, the team closed its season as fourth in the country in Division II.

AFA All-Americans are seniors on their institutions’ speech and debate teams who are selected based on their outstanding achievements in intercollegiate speech competition, their superior academic performances, and their substantial involvement in community service and civic engagement.

The breadth of Blomquist’s accomplishments is extremely rare in forensic competition. With more than 80 individual awards to his credit, he has excelled across all areas of competition: prepared speaking, limited preparation speaking, oral interpretation and debate.

He is the reigning Pennsylvania State champion in both Informative Speaking and Dramatic Duo Interpretation with his team partner Russell Moll, a senior Honors political science major from Downingtown. Blomquist is also a former State champion in After Dinner Speaking and Program Oral Interpretation, a National Forensics Association national Quarterfinalist in both Extemporaneous Speaking and Impromptu Speaking, and a national semifinalist at the 2007 Pi Kappa Delta National Championship in Parliamentary Debate.

Blomquist’s commitment to civic engagement and community service is far above average. He has completed the Bonner Scholar community service program, which requires documentation of at least 300 hours of community service in an academic year. He holds the distinction of being one of three United States student delegates to the Total Université Conference on Energy and the Geopolitics of Petroleum in Paris, France, in the summer of 2007. In the summer of 2006, Blomquist traveled to South Africa with the WCU Honors College to complete a service project working with children who are heads of households because their parents have died from AIDS-related illnesses. He will return to South Africa this May to complete a second service project through the Honors College. These are only some of the highlights of a long list of his community involvement and commitments.

Blomquist has been accepted at the University of Pittsburgh, where he will pursue his master’s degree in international security and intelligence studies, with his eye on a career with the Secret Service or the CIA.

For more information, contact Mark Hickman, Director of Forensics, at mhickman@wcupa.edu or 610-436-6942.

West Chester University is one of the 14 institutions in the Pennsylvania Sate System of Higher Education.