By HANNAH SIEGEL

The Mirror reporter

Forensics is a speaking competition where students learn how to speak publically about a variety of topics, issues and random pieces of information.

This year’s season has been successful, all the students who competed in the sub-district competition headed onto the district competition. Which was held Saturday, March 17.  They now head to the state competition in Madison, Friday, April 20 and Saturday, April 21.

The students competing at state are Saralyn Carcy and Stephanie Vang in farrago; Reid Larson in impromptu; Elaina Knapp and Emma Pech in play acting; Jocelyn He in poetry; Kenzie Swinford and Kaia Houtman in prose; and finally, Jacqueline Wisinski is competing in extemporaneous.

The season started off with 40 to 50 student in the informational meeting, according to Anna Tempus, Stevens Point Area Senior High (SPASH) Forensics coach. Now there are 25 students competing in both individual or group events.

Tempus stated that this year’s team is extremely hard working and dedicated. She said she walked into their first meeting and nobody was sitting around wasting time, everybody used every second of our meeting time efficiently and asked for feedback. I’m very proud of the fact that everybody was onboard and ready. That makes a world of a difference in a team,” Tempus stated. “I couldn’t be happier with this year’s team and results. No matter how we do at District and at state, I’m proud of the work they’ve been willing to put in and the time they’ve taken to hone their craft.”

“The cool thing with forensics is that you are not in competition with other students, you are in competition with yourself, so at these competitions, all you have to do is improve your scores. I like this because it makes the team tighter because they aren’t competing against each other. This also makes the event down in Madison a friendlier atmosphere rather than hostile because we aren’t waring against each other were working together,” Tempus stated.

Tempus further said she is very excited to see the students advancing because it is not an easy thing to do. She is also interested to see how the students will do but have the “utmost confidence in everybody who’s speaking.”

This is Tempus’s first year coaching forensics. She is excited and learning tons not just from other coaches but from her students.

“I had never done forensics before so I’m kind of sitting on the shoulders of giants. I’m working with the students, people in the district and the District 5 Forensics Team. They are all helping me out to get settled here,” Tempus said.

Tempus’s assistant coach Jill Donahue has also helped. “Jill has been a wonderful resource and fantastic coach. She has made a huge difference to me as a first-time coach,” Tempus said.

Donahue has forensics experience from coaching at her previous school district.

Here in Wisconsin, we have two different areas of forensics. Wisconsin High School Forensics Association (WHSFA) is the current league SPASH participates in. This is non-competitive, however, there is a competitive side, the Wisconsin Forensics Coaches Association (WFCA) where students compete against other students and schools.

“I talked earlier about how I appreciate that we participate in a non-competitive environment, due to the fact that it’s a friendly atmosphere. In the future, however, I would love to see us in some of those competitions to see how we would do in a different environment along with the WHSFA because I believe it is a valuable way to do forensics.”