The Wayne State College Forensics Team, headed by Jonathan Laner, is sending eight members to Nationals in Mount Pleasant, Michigan on April 16.
Brayden Almgren, Kirsten Fike, Faatimah Kouatli, Zachery Randall, Corbin Kinney, Chloe Hibler, Jadyn Burenheide and Olivia Perske are the eight students who are advancing to the national competition. They will be presenting their works in the Humanities lounge on Monday, April 15.
These students have been working towards Nationals since the beginning of the 2023 academic year. They practice upwards of four hours a week on top of their class demands, including a mandatory 30-minute advisor meeting.
At the beginning of each week, the forensics team meets so students can make sure they are prepared for any upcoming meets they may have. If students are presenting at an upcoming competition, they will be asked to perform their speech or debate in front of the remainder of the team.
“The hardest thing to do is perform in front of your peers,” Laner said. “If a student can do that, I believe they are ready for competition.”
The hours put into private practice sessions in addition to any other practice, either with teammates or solo, leaves students with busy schedules.
“Students put so many hours into forensics that they might not have enough time for a job,” Laner said. “Because of this, students are given a small stipend and essentially become employees of the college.”
The forensics team will be traveling to Mount Pleasant in school vehicles because students are ‘employees’ of the college. Some of them have taken the defensive driving course provided by WSC which allows students to drive school vehicles to avoid needing to be driven my staff.
Laner is a relatively new addition to the forensics team, though he started his personal speech journey in high school.
“When I graduated, I felt like I was leaving behind the place I found my home,” Laner said. “I knew I wanted to go into education and continue my speech journey.”
After six years of assistant coaching at Howells-Dodge, Laner was recruited by Deb Witt to help rebuild the WSC Forensics Team. Since then, the team has grown, at one point having 25 members.
Laner still helps high schools by judging speech completions, so the team needed additional help. This led to Sydney Truman joining as an assistant coach.
“I was nervous about Sydney joining because she had no speech experience, but she has fit into the culture so well,” Laner said.
