USD 257 board members were treated to an award-winning performance at Monday evening’s meeting when students from the Iola High School forensics team were on-hand to discuss their stellar season.
Regina Chriestenson, speech and drama teacher and supervisor of the forensics club, said 27 students participated.
The team placed in the top three of every tournament they competed in. She noted there were a combined 16 state medals between the seniors who competed in forensics over their four-year careers.
For the first year since she’s been teaching the team, Chriestenson said they were able to compete in both the state festival and state championship tournament.
“We have never competed in the festival before,” she said. She likened the festival to band festivals, where students are given ratings for their performance. Chriestenson noted that both Shaun McLaughlin and Stephanie Fees received 1 division ratings at the festival.
The full team competed at the state championship tournament.
“To my knowledge, we had two school records,” said Chriestenson. “We had 12 out of our 16 entries break into semi-finals — the most we’ve ever had.
“We then had three students break into finals in four events.” Two of these finalists, Demarco Ross and Max Andersen, accompanied Chriestenson at the board meeting.
Layla Newkirk, the other IHS student competing at finals, was unable to attend the board meeting.
Newkirk took third place in prose at the state competition.
ROSS SPOKE to board members about what forensics has meant to him.
Starting his freshman year, Ross credited “a great group of seniors who inspired me to do the best I can.”
Ross has been a state medalist all four years of high school, most recently taking sixth place in poetry.
Taking an interest in poetry early on, Ross focused on poems that dealt primarily with race relations.
His freshman year, Ross performed a piece “that reflected on how Black men are treated in America today,” he said. Using poetry by Langston Hughes, Ross said he would compare how racial issues have not changed much over the years.
“Ever since I did that, and got second place at state, my interest in forensics grew significantly,” he said. “A lot of the pieces that I’ve picked out are intended to be thought-provoking.”
