There's No Debate--Forensics Team Is Top-Notch

The Ann Arbor News, Sunday, June 23, 1974

There’s No Debate—Forensics Team Is Top-Notch

Practice as well as talent have made the Huron High students successful. Some put in eight hours a week after school on forensics.

By Mary Ansley
(News Staff Reporter)

In a glass case in a corridor at Huron High School are about 100 trophies won by students in the last three years for forensics.

Forensics? Acknowledging that the term is not familiar to most, Huron High's forensics coach Marcia Kreger explains it.

Forensics is public peaking and the oral interpretation of pieces of literature. It is often confused with debating, says Mrs. Kreger, but does not involve presenting affirmative and negative arguments, as debating does.

There are nine categories in high school forensics competition, four of them in oral interpretation. These are: serious interpretation, where the student reads extracts from a serious play, poem and prose piece; humorous interpretation, where two suitable pieces of any type are presented; storytelling, where the student memorizes and presents one story; and multiple reading, which is a piece or pieces on a theme presented by three to eight persons. In this last event, participants use no costumes or props, except a chair or stool, and may make expressive gestures but may not act.

The public speaking events include girls' and boys' oratory, for which competitors research and write their own speeches; declamation, the memorization of a famous oration; extemporaneous speaking, for which the contestant has 30 minutes to prepare a speech on a topic of current interest; and radio news, for which the student presents a four-minute news program using copy given to him 30 minutes earlier.

Huron High enters about 20 students in these events at the high school tournaments held in Michigan on Saturdays between January and June. There are about six invitational tournaments each year, and district and regional eliminations, followed by the state championship.

The Huron forensics team travels to the tournaments by car, sometimes leaving home at 5 a. m. and not returning until 8 p. m. But their trips are made worthwhile by the awards they win.

The team has done well in tournaments at all levels, including the state competition, since the school was opened six years ago. Marcia Kreger took over from coach Betty Anderson three years ago, and has maintained the high standards the first coach set.

At the state championships- held for the last few years at the U-M Frieze Building - about 350 schools are represented. In May 1974, Huron's Beverly Balch was state champion for declamation, and Claudia Baler received third place in girls' oratory. Other Huron place-getters and qualifiers were: Laura Baler, Dave Brazer, Lona Georgopoulos, Lisa Gimelli, Jeff Sinclair and Cathy Abrams.

At last year's state competition, Nancy Balch won serious interpretation and other Huron students who placed were Jane Cockrell and Jeff Sinclair.

All of this seems to support Mrs. Kreger's claim that her forensics team is very talented. They are particularly able to handling different voices, accents and mannerisms, she says. One girl recently presented an extract from a play which required her to use five different voices.

Practice as well as talent have made the students successful. Some of them put in eight hours a week after school on forensics, and Mrs. Kreger says the subject will be offered as an elective course next year so the students can get credit for their work.

Mrs. Kreger also sees the team's morale, which she describes as phenomenal, has contributed in a big way to its success. The students help find extracts for one another, and the more experienced help the others with their practice and with handling stage fright.

The mostly female Huron team - which numbers 23 this year - represents sophomores, juniors and seniors, and Mrs. Kreger says there are no cliques within the group.

Team spirit is such that some former Huron students are still supporting the program by helping with training and judging. Gloria McEwen, now a junior at U-M, and Gary Weston, now a junior at Eastern Michigan University, have been particularly helpful in this way, Mrs, Kreger says.

And the very enthusiastic Mrs. Kreger must, herself, have some credit for her team's work. She often has the students at her home practicing, or having a potluck lunch before a tournament. Her husband knows the whole team, she says. And "Kreeg," as some of her students call her, ran the regional eliminations this year.

Debby Mueller (Top) And Lona Georgopoulos, Longest-Standing Members Of Huron High School's Forensics Team, Look At Some Of The 100 Trophies The Team Has Garnered In Three Years