Wofford College

West DeWaard '27 took home first place at the ninth-annual Terrier Startup Challenge. The student-led business event is organized by the Career Center's Launch Program, which aims to support and guide students in growing their entrepreneurial skills and ventures. DeWaard's fledgling business Raised Outdoors aims to divert wood waste by upcycling wooden pallets into raised flower beds.

The winners and second-place finishers for the Helmus Award in Poetry and the Journal Award in Fiction were announced by the Department of English.

Wofford College will host students from 16 colleges and universities on Feb. 24-25 as they compete in an American Mock Trial Association Regional Tournament. This is the second year Wofford has hosted the regional. The competition was held on campus last year. This year, the opening and closing ceremonies will be held in Leonard Auditorium, but the competitions will move to the newly-opened Spartanburg County Courthouse. Teams from Berry College, College of Charleston, Duke University, East Tennessee State, Florida State University, Georgia College and State University, Georgia Tech, Kennesaw State, LaGrange College, New College of Florida, Spelman College, the University of Alabama, the University of Georgia, the University of South Carolina, the University of South Carolina Upstate and Western Carolina University will compete in the regional. Wofford will not compete this year.

A childhood love for performance art led Audrey Buffington '24, a theatre major and business and film and digital media minor from Greenville, South Carolina, to make a short film about her experience. The film, "Love Letter to SCNPF," recently earned first place in the AWE College Student Film Competition at the Tryon International Film Festival. "My dream, as long as I can remember, has been to perform, and I've pursued that in every possible way," Buffington says. "I've always been told I have to leave and go somewhere else. Then this festival showed up and said we have opportunities right here."

Sugar plus spice equaled a winning recipe for Heide Woodworth and her daughter, Colette, in the Department of Mathematics' annual dessert competition. Heide, administrative assistant for math and computer science, and Colette took top honors with a three-layer cake topped with a gingerbread house and copious amounts of frosting. "It was unexpected, and I'm honored to have won the competition," Woodworth says. "I had a vision in my head and a lot of spices around the house, so I looked up a recipe that could use those."

A pair of first-year students will represent Wofford College in the SoCon Entrepreneurship Challenge on March 31 at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. Zion Sampson '26, an undeclared major from Aiken, South Carolina, will present a nonprofit business that provides dental care to underserved communities. Tommy Tessien '26, an undeclared major from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, will present a for-profit business called Perfect Curb.

For two hours, prosecutors and defense attorneys peppered witnesses with questions and sparred with each other over procedural issues. Jurors, tasked with deciding the innocence or guilt of a defendant charged with arson and murder, listened intently. The drama didn't unfold in a courtroom, however. Instead, this case was contested in a classroom as part of Wofford's mock trial Interim class.

Jason Kellinger '24 earned an opportunity that he will always treasure. Kellinger, an undeclared major from Calne, England, represented Great Britain in the Scottish Open Fullbore Rifle competition. "Representing Great Britain will always be a proud moment of my life," says Kellinger, who was one of 12 selected for Great Britain's under-19 team.

Wofford College's Rosalind Sallenger Richardson Center for the Arts served as a courthouse in February as 300 students from 13 colleges and universities competed in an American Mock Trial Association Regional Tournament. Wofford, which had two teams participating in the tournament, fielded its first mock trial team in 2022, and now the college hosted a regional tournament.

Two Wofford College students with a fourth-place finish in a statewide venture pitch competition last week won the college's sixth annual Terrier StartUp Challenge. Cassie Figueroa '24 and Alec Schrader '24 won $4,500 of the contest's $10,000 in start-up funding for their concept Campus Connections. The business is a consolidated website where college students can offer services, including haircuts, photography, oil changes, rides, etc. Students wanting to use those services could book appointments and pay through the website.

Wofford's student newspaper, The Old Gold and Black, wins nine awards.

Students in Wofford's Chinese Language and Culture Program brought home six awards from the seventh Palmetto Chinese Star Competition.

The Old Gold & Black student newspaper won seven awards, including three first-place recognitions, in the 2015 South Carolina Press Association Collegiate Competition.

Wofford's Impact and Launch programs offer scholarships to students who want to learn entrepreneurship skills through the Impact tract, which promotes social-good projects and non-profit businesses, or through the Launch tract, where students start and run a for-profit business.

Wofford's Quiz Bowl team has been invited to take part in the NAQT Intercollegiate Championship Tournament in Division II.

Wofford's programming team, the WoCoders, finished second in its division in the Mercer Spring Programming Competition held at Mercer University in Atlanta.

Students in Wofford's Chinese Language and Culture Program brought home six awards from the Sixth Palmetto Chinese Star Competition.

A team of Wofford students won the CFA Institute Research Challenge Southern Classic.