2008 Woodie Awards
There's no debating about it
Anna Johnson joins Delta College as the new speech and debate coach
Alicia Lozea-Ponce
Issue date: 9/16/05 Section: News
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This year, Delta College welcomes a new staff member, Anna Johnson, to its faculty as the new speech and debate coach. When asked what was the reason for coming to Delta, she said that the college had a history of having a strong speech and debate team.
According to Johnson, "We will go to Nationals."
The biggest reason she came was because Delta's supportive faculty and administration have made her transition so smooth that she couldn't ask for anything better. Johnson also talked about how the president and vice president of the college have made her future at Delta to be an outstanding opportunity.
Johnson comes to Delta from her previous job at Chabot College in Hayward, where her speech and debate team won a bronze metal. Another of her teams went on to win a gold medal in a competition when she worked at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill.
She has not always worked as speech professor; at one point she worked for the 10 a.m. Fox news program in Oakland, doing a number of different tasks. "You name it, I did it," said Johnson.
According to her, having a background in speech and debate helped her get that very job because it showed that she could talk to people and not feel uncomfortable in doing so.
Johnson's interest in speech and debate started when she was a young girl, when all she wanted to do was talk about horses. As a child, all she wanted was for people to listen to her. Starting out as an outspoken child talking about horses led her to participating in her high school's speech and debate team for four years. She then went on to participate at both the junior college and the four-year university that she attended. In all her years of active participation, she earned many awards for her accomplishments.
When asked what was in store for Delta's speech and debate team, and if in fact there was going to be one, she stated that she had a lot planned for her team, including going to the nationals, which is her main goal. She made it clear that the students not only have nationals to look forward to, but Johnson plans to get the team to participate in places such as Santa Clara, San Diego and Los Angeles, but the team will definitely know California all the way up and all the way down.