Student pushes the envelope with public speaking experiment

Kenan Yarboro looks forward to the hell, fire and brimstone messages that open-air preachers like Ross Jackson bring on their visits to campus. He's usually part of the circle of people that gather around to listen -- or argue -- with Jackson who is known on campus as Brother Ross.

"I was out on campus one day listening to him talk, and he called me a masturbator and a fornicator," Yarboro said. "He told me once I didn't have the balls to come do what he did out there, and I told him I did have the balls to do it, so that's when I decided one day I would do it."

That's how Yarboro ended up on the other side of the crowd -- in Brother Ross' shoes on Thursday.

The opportunity came after getting one of his first assignments in his public speaking class. The assignment was to do something he had never done before and write a speech about it. He decided he would take up Ross' challenge.

After getting a permit for the free speech zone on the mall, Yarboro dressed in his Sunday best and carrying his Bible, made his way there around noon and began to preach.

"The adrenaline rush is insane," he said. "You can say whatever you want. As long as you don't touch anyone you can literally say whatever you want."

Sweat poured down his head as he paced, Yarboro kept up the act as more people stopped to listen. The crowd of about 10 people grew to a circle of about 30.

He said the worst reaction from the crowd came when he said President Barack Obama was the anti-Christ. "One guy asked, 'Well didn't God put Barack Obama in the White House?' and I said, 'Yeah, of course he would so he could destroy America because we have gay people everywhere.'"

"I didn't really know what I would say, so I went on some Web sites -- the Westboro Baptist Church and YouTube and sites like that," he said. "That's where I got the 'Obama is the Anti-christ' from."

When a student who said he was Muslim asked if Muslims were going to hell, too, Yarboro responded, "Yes, they're going to hell if they don't turn from their evil God, Allah."

That student was junior, Shady Maksimous. Maksimous felt the act was a little over the top for an assignment.

"My friend that shot the video told me it was a joke," he said. "I am a media production major and I've taken public speaking and that has nothing to do with public speaking."

His friend, Becky Clingenpeel, who also shot a video of the performance with her cell phone, told him later that it wasn't real.

Yarboro said that the only other person who knew what was going on was his professor, who stopped by to see the project in action. When the crowd grew more hostile, and Yarboro said he felt like he got enough of the experience, he let them in on the secret.

"I told them, 'This is all a joke. It's for a public speaking class. I'll see you all later. I love you. Bye,'" he said. "Half the people, I think, didn't understand what I said because they were pissed. They were yelling, 'Come back. Come back. We're not done yet.'"

He said he's sure the other half probably got it. He ran into some of them at the gym later, and he says they told him it was hilarious.

"I think it was an adrenaline rush. It was people literally 360 degrees yelling at you from different angles while you are just condemning them to hell. I don't think I'd ever do it again, but it was crazy," he said.

Yarboro wrote his speech for class immediately after he left the mall and will give his speech later in the semester.

See the video by following the link on our twitter page at twitter.com/ecunews.