After nine years of coaching together on the WKU Forensic Team, Judy Woodring and Jace Lux expect Thursday, July 1, will be just another day at the office.
Judy Woodring
Woodring and Lux will still occupy the same offices in the Garrett Conference Center, but they’ll be in new positions. After two decades of directing WKU’s award-winning speech and debate programs, Woodring is retiring as director. Lux, who has been associate director for the past three years, is taking over as director.
“I’m incredibly happy that Jace is going to stay here and take over this program,” Woodring said. “He’s the ideal person. It takes a special person to work with coaches and students and he’s that special person.”
Lux, a native of Evansville, Ind., was a member of WKU’s Forensic Team from 1998 to 2000 and was a team coach for six years before becoming associate director. “Judy has done everything she can to make sure I’m prepared for this role,” he said. “You don’t often get the chance to work with the person who is the best in the world at their position, but I’ve done that for the past nine years. I’ve learned from the best.”
Jace Lux
The National Forensic League recently honored Woodring with the Brother Gregory “Rene” Sterner Alumni Lifetime Service Award at the NFL National Tournament Awards Assembly in Kansas City, Mo. Woodring received the award for her decades-long commitment to speech and debate at both the high school and college levels. The award was presented by one of her standout alumni, recording artist and daytime television star Kassie DePaiva.
“I was truly surprised,” Woodring said of the award. “I was very honored.”
“This award is yet another recognition of Mrs. Woodring’s exceptional leadership in building and advancing forensics program opportunities for students,” WKU Provost Barbara Burch said. “She is widely recognized for her talent, dedication and exceptional achievements in building the forensics program at WKU, and this award affirms the impact of her influence and leadership nationally as well.”
President Gary Ransdell agrees. “Judy Woodring has, as much anyone at WKU, helped us understand that WKU can indeed become a leading American university,” he said. “She has taken a good forensics program and turned it into the best in American higher education.”
Woodring, a 1965 WKU graduate, taught speech and debate at Webster County Union County high schools before returning to the Hill in 1988 as director of the Kentucky High School Speech League then becoming director of the forensic program in 1989.
In the past two decades, the program has built a tradition of state, national and international championships.
“If it hadn’t been for Dr. Burch and Dr. Ransdell, WKU would just be a regional forensic team,” Woodring said. “It takes money to compete and recruit nationally and to provide scholarships that attract the best students.”
WKU is the only team to win the American Forensic Association national title, National Forensic Association national title, NFA debate national title and the International Forensic Association title in the same year – and accomplished that feat five times.
WKU has won the Kentucky Forensic Association championship for 20 consecutive years as well as five Delta Sigma Rho-Tau Kappa Alpha national titles, nine NFA debate titles, seven NFA individual event titles and six AFA national titles.
“Judy is smart, tenacious and understands what it takes to compete against the best and win,” Dr. Ransdell said. “She has recruited bright, hard working students who were high school champions and molded them into collegiate national champions against students from the best universities in the nation and across the globe. She has put WKU in that category. She has earned a lofty place in the WKU history book.”
The team’s national and international success and the administrative support have boosted WKU’s profile in the past decade and allowed the program to recruit nationally, according to Lux, who was elected earlier this year to a position on the National Forensics Association’s Executive Council.
When recruits ask why WKU’s forensic program is different, Lux shares a story about how Dr. Ransdell left a basketball banquet early to attend the forensic team’s banquet. “The administrative support we have is unparalleled. Without their support, we wouldn’t be the team we are,” he said.
The program attracts top students in all academic disciplines. “One thing that is extremely important to Judy and me is the academic reputation of our team,” Lux said. “Our collective team GPA has been over a 3.3 for the past eight years, and most years it is higher than that. The majority of our graduates go on to earn an advanced degree, ranging from a master’s to a law degree. I would feel confident saying that more of our graduates go on to earn an advanced degree than graduates of any other program in the nation.”
Dr. Burch said Woodring “not only knows how to build the capacity of her students but also is superb at mentoring and growing the coaches and staff that are such an important of these programs. She has built on the traditions of WKU in ways that have transformed the program, ensuring that those elements that are critical to the continuing success of the programs are built into the fabric of her work.”
Even though Woodring is retiring as the program’s director, she’ll still be involved with speech and debate by developing a rural debate league, raising money for the forensic team, coaching the Sky Academy home school team and creating an online certificate program for forensic coaches.
Plus she’ll be right next door in case Lux needs anything, although she notes that “he knows every single aspect of this job.”
Lux agreed. “There is not a better transition scenario,” he said. “We’ve had a real partnership for the past nine years and that’s going to continue. Outside of my family, no one has done more for me than Judy as far as making sure I’m prepared.”
Contact: Judy Woodring or Jace Lux at (270) 745-6340.
