Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410100019
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ADRIANNE BEE SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
"I get in trouble all of the time for running my mouth," said the 16-year-old senior. "I don't mean to, but I often find myself rambling on and on."
Price's natural tendency to ramble has paid off. He is the national champion in prose interpretation and has won many invitational tournaments in public speaking during the past three years as a member of Blacksburg High's Forensics Team.
Price has an attention-grabbing personality. Heads turned at Mill Mountain Coffee and Tea recently as he ordered an Italian soda with a voice that boomed like a radio announcer's.
He is polished and professional. A bright smile never leaves his face. "This is my converted accent I use to fit into the scene," he said, with no accent at all. "When I go home, I'll be back to my local twang, you know, "Hey dad, let's go chase the chickens out back.'"
Humor is Price's forte. He recently took second place in humorous interpretation at a local tournament. In this type of forensics competition, Price becomes the various characters in a scene from a play, giving each one a different voice and a distinct personality.
"My influences are the late John Belushi and Chris Farley, the overweight men of Saturday Night Live," said Price. One day, he would like to star in the late night show himself.
"Dennis has an incredible sense of comedic timing," said forensics coach Karen Finch. "He knows just how long to wait before delivering the punch line. He makes people laugh so hard that they have tears rolling down their face."
Price admits that his parents are indeed proud and are often known to say, "That there's our national champion." They've even coaxed him into doing voices for company and family reunions. Once they cried during one of Price's dramatic interpretations. "They get too far into it," Price said with a laugh.
Price claims he wasn't born with his speaking prowess. He attributes much of his success to Finch, who had him practice reading in front of her classes and kept after him after his first tournament, where Price remembers doing "terribly." By his third tournament, Price had won two events.
Finch is proud of her team.
"Blacksburg High has a tremendous pool of talent to draw from," she said. Adam Jortner, who graduated from Blacksburg High School in June, received the highest degree possible in the National Forensics League and now attends Brown University in Providence, R.I. According to Finch, Jortner had to receive almost perfect rankings to become a national finalist. Jortner was student body president last year.
Guess who took his place?
Dennis Price.
The Forensics Team is "a family that cares and looks after one another," Finch said.
Although the school helps with travel and tournament expenses, the students have to pay most of their own way. "We have bake sales, car washes, we beg and plead," Price said. Though forensic tournaments can be expensive, "it's worth every penny," he added.
Both Price and Finch praise the merits of mastering public speaking.
It's a good way to get out of your shell and gives you needed skills for job interviews and any type of day-to-day communication, Price said.
Although 30 seniors graduated and left the team in June, leaving Finch feeling "like a football coach who's lost their first line-up," she is happy about the promise her newly recruited freshmen and sophomores are showing. Does a football analogy seem out of place for the forensic team? Not to Price, who thinks "there's as much heated competition in what we do as there is in any high school sport."
The senior has just started looking forward to his future as a college student.
"I don't want to stay in Blacksburg," Price said. DePaul and Carnegie Mellon are two of the schools he is considering as a potential theater major.
by CNB