Forensics: from the podium to the public

By Jerod Barker

May 15, 2008

The Silver Lake forensics squad has made serious strides this year. Led by Gail Naylor, head coach for over 30 years, the returning speakers and actors improved while helping the newcomers hone their talents.

“This year we have a very young squad,” Naylor stated. “With only four seniors and a lot of novices, it’s been tougher this season than in previous years, but I think we’ve done fairly well as far as growing and developing skilled performers during the season.”

Senior Jordan Lambert, fourth-year actor, wasted no time earning medals with his prose and poetry performances. After placing at his first tournament of the season, it seemed Lambert had made the right choice for an event, though he had never previously performed in prose and poetry.

Lambert and fellow senior Marshall Wetta another fourth-year actor, started off their season deciding which piece would be best to perform for their duet interpretation.

Photo By Colby Killinger

“I had really high expectations for this season, and I wanted to make the best of my last year under the direction of Naylor,” Wetta explained. “I wouldn’t give up forensics for anything.”

Along with the duet, Wetta had decided on his humorous interpretation piece, “Removing the Glove,” a satirical comedy about accepting yourself in an unaccepting society. Wetta plays a confused teenager who, due to hand dominance, is rejected by his friends and family because he is a “sick, depraved lefty!”

Wetta has always enjoyed acting and planned on sticking with his two usual events. Naylor, on the other hand, had other plans for him.

Since Michelle Taylor, the only senior girl on the squad, began her forensics career as a sophomore, she has always steered more toward public speaking rather than acting.

She had also made a lot of headway on the editing and revising of her oration, “When the Going Gets Tough,” a persuasive speech suggesting that sometimes it is beneficial, and even essential, to quit certain habits, activities, or careers in life.

For her final semester, Naylor separated the Wetta/Lambert duo to put Jordan with his younger brother and paired up Taylor and Wetta to perform in a duet. Their piece, entitled “Kissing Scene,” portrays the chemistry and chaos between two ambitious actors who, while practicing a scene of their own, learn to respect one another and fall in love.

“It was a lot of fun working on our duet,” Taylor said. “It was my first time doing an acting event but it turned out to be successful, and I’m glad we did it.”

The Wetta/Taylor duet turned out to be quite successful indeed.

After placing second at the Topeka West High School tournament and first at the Mid-East League Tournament, the arrangement proved to be a good decision on Naylor’s part.

Senior Jared Wilcox actually came back to the program after competing as a sophomore and taking his junior year off. He has also had noteworthy success in prose and poetry.

Juniors Kayleen Kelley and Jay McDaniel took their prose and poetry scripts to weekend competitions while fellow juniors Trent Strunk and Steph Magee performed their informatives. Strunk outlined the fun facts about soda pop in his speech while Magee made funny faces in hers.

Juniors Kali Huske and JaVon Martin got emotional with their dramatic performances while Matt McClain took a more humorous approach to his portrayals.

Martin placed second at the opening tournament of the season in Rossville with his dramatic interpretation and won the very next week at the Shawnee Heights Invitational Tournament.

“My piece, ‘Direct From Death Row: The Scotsboro Boys’ is about an African American who is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit,” Martin explained. “I had been reading it before the forensics season started, and I wanted to turn it into a DI.”

McClain also took home a gold medal from the Royal Valley High School tournament with his HI.

Returning sophomores also experienced an excellent year. Shelby Brokaw revealed the world of competition between girls in school with her oration, “Stingdom.” Highlighting a correlation between their teenage behavior and the behavior of bees in a hive, Brokaw showed the political as well as personal sides of cliques becoming kingdoms within the walls of academia.

Derek Holmer and Rachel Cross returned for their second year after competing together at the 2007 CFL National Tournament in Houston, Texas the previous season. They competed at numerous varsity tournaments with their new duet piece, “Where Have All the Lightning Bugs Gone?” a story about two lovesick adolescents who grow up to be separated by a war-torn society.

Brooke Brennan and Jestina Matulka repeated their freshman year by competing with, as well as against, each other. The two girls performed their duet first, and then went their separate ways to perform their individual informative speeches.

Jerod Barker, Cameron Lambert and Cole Schwarz also showed off their humorous and dramatic sides. All three competitors performed at the 2007 state championships their freshman year and returned to Wichita to compete for a second year.

The novices were no different in their success. Emily Taylor, Chloe Austin and Christin Oyler surprised many upperclassmen with their undiscovered talents in the art of competitive speaking. All three freshmen presented very well-structured persuasive and informative speeches.

“I joined forensics because Naylor told me that I’d be good at it when I was taking her speech class,” Austin said. “I decided that if I could be really good at it, I wanted to do it competitively.”

Other successful novices were Josh Pladies and Riley Oblander in duet, Jake Maryott and Jaeton Martin in extemporaneous speaking, Tyler Roth in prose/poetry, and Jacob Lambert in IDA.

Many of the squad members’ work paid off when they competed at the state championships on May 3 in Wichita. The team qualified eight competitors to semifinals, six of those to the final round and, of the remaining competitors, two made it out as state champions. Silver Lake placed third as a squad. (See results below.)

Photo By Rachel Cross

A number of competitors also qualified to the 2008 CFL national forensics tournament in Appleton, Wis. The tournament will be held on Memorial Day weekend.

Many of the squad members also competed at the NFL national qualifying tournament. The tournament was held at Washburn Rural High School on April 18-19.

Barker took first in humorous interpretation finals, qualifying him to the NFL national championship tournament, which will be held in Las Vegas, NV on June 12-21. Schroeder also qualified, taking second in oration.

This will be the 20th straight appearance for Silver Lake at the NFL national championships.

“I’m anxious to see how each of the kids do in post season,” Naylor said. “They’ve had to work extremely hard to get qualified, and now they have the chance to compete at a higher level.”

Other finalists included the Lambert brothers, who placed third in duo interpretation. C. Lambert also placed seventh in dramatic interpretation.

The squad as a whole also won the traveling sweepstakes trophy for most rounds accumulated in the Flint Hills district with 1,060 total rounds.