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- Room 155 of Northwest College’s Science and Mathematics building isn’t usually this packed on a Saturday evening. Every single desk in the room is occupied, and those who have come too late to find a seat simply lean or sit against the wall. A hum of hushed conversations permeates the classroom. It’s the final round in the drama category on the last day of the Trapper Rendezvous forensics tournament.
Simultaneously, in other designated places throughout campus, finals are taking place in other categories like poetry reading, duet, prose or debate. A day or even an hour earlier, finding a place to sit in any given room would have been easy. The only people there would most likely have been the competitors and the judge. But not for this round. These are the finals, the rounds that people come to see even if they have to stand.
It isn’t very difficult to tell who has come to watch and who has come to compete. Any given moment between Thursday afternoon and Saturday night, passersby may have noticed an unusually large number of college-age kids strolling across campus who looked like they were on their way to a corporate merger.
The members of any of the 12 forensics teams that weekend all dress professionally. Power colors like red or dark blue, contrasted with black suits, seem to be the most popular trend among both men and women members. Those who focus more on debate can sometimes be seen carrying a briefcase, while the ones who interpret published work like prose or poetry always have their small, black, three-ring binders that contain everything they choose to perform.
Aside from how they dress or what they carry, the nerves are what really make room 155’s competitors stand out from the spectators tonight. Six have made it this far, and they know what is at stake. They don’t talk as much or as light-heartedly as the other people in the room. Some don’t even say a word. Of the six in the final drama round, three of the competitors are from the Northwest College forensics team.
Bryce Cornatzer is the earliest of the three to show up. He is dressed in a light tan suit that most likely came from a thrift store. Considering the formality of the tournament, Cornatzer has toned his look down considerably. His pair of leopard-fur loafers will have to wait another day.
Cornatzer takes a seat in the front of the room, one of the last remaining desks that isn’t filled. His brown leather briefcase sits at the side of his desk. The list of names on the chalkboard at the front of the room has his as one of the last to go. He has plenty of time to watch the competition, but tries his best not to.
Like anyone about to perform in a final round, Cornatzer is nervous. But he gets over it thanks to the help of Garrison Keillor.
Keillor is the host of “A Prairie Home Companion,” the famed broadcast heard on public radio stations across the country. Cornatzer describes him as “one of the most interesting people on the face of this earth.”
“He’s got just this amazing level of apathy when he performs in front of people,” Cornatzer says of Keillor, “So I’ve been trying to mimic Garrison Keillor.”
Not to say that adopting such an attitude means he doesn’t care completely. He tries to only be apathetic enough “to the extent that if you don’t win, it’s not the end of the world.” Cornatzer’s piece about a man claiming to possess the table cloth used at the Last Supper will take first place in the drama category.
Although it may not conform to the conventional image of competition that sports and athletics have, forensics is a very competitive activity. The members of the NWC team put in hours of practice memorizing pieces, researching debate topics and crafting their performances in order to meet the strict forensics rules. In duets, performers are not to look at or touch each other. Body movement is limited, especially the lower body. Unlike theater, speech focuses more on interpretation than it does performance.
The pieces that team members choose to perform are usually humorous or engaging on their own, but it is skill and craft, not solely entertainment value, that wins rounds.
What is deemed as a good or poor is determined largely by volunteer judges, who may or may not be familiar with forensics.
“They can be really good and they can be really bad,” says Brett Delaney, the NWC team’s president, “it depends on the event.”
“I do think for a majority of speech,” says Grant Langdon, vice president and member of the forensics team, “it’s very random selection, luck of the draw…When it gets down to the nitty-gritty…I think it just becomes judge’s preference.”
Carrying a bottle of water in one hand and a news magazine in the other, Langdon enters room 155 a little late. He finds a chair next to the wall, where most of the latecomers have congregated. Langdon wears the more traditional corporate merger uniform, a black suit, dark blue shirt. He doesn’t act like a person who wants a lot of attention. This will all change once he gets to the front of the room.
He is especially nervous and careful today because his mom and three sisters are watching. “I would definitely say my nerves were probably more at this meet than at away tournaments when they’re not there,” he says. “I know they tell me that it shouldn’t play a factor, but it definitely did.”
A team member from Sheridan has just finished his piece. Langdon is next. There are usually a good 20 to 30 seconds of silence between the end of one piece and the beginning of the next as the judges finish writing their comments on a ballot that will be seen long after the performers find out how they place. Langdon counts down slowly in his head and deliberately controls his breathing. Ten. Nine. Eight…
“Langdon,” announces the judge. The audience politely applauds.
“By the time I get to one,” he says, “I’m usually focused or in character.” With his little black binder in hand, he walks up to the front of the room and quickly transforms himself from a nervous college student to the middle-aged childhood friend of Lucille Ball.
The nervous energy of speech rounds and the stiff competition of debate aren’t all that characterize forensic team members. Often, there is a large gap of time between one round and the next that allows them to relax and clear their heads.
The Trapper Room on the NWC campus is where most of the competitors go for this weekend’s tournament. This is where periodic postings inform them of their placing and whether or not they will move to the next round. A table with stacks of encyclopedias, news magazines and reference material sits near the entrance. These are used by people in debate or extemporaneous speaking rounds, in which competitors are given 15 minutes to research a certain topic and prepare an argument for or against it.
The formality of presentation is gone here. One group sits around a table playing cards, while another sits in couches discussing politics.- A few people sprawl out on the floor asleep or lost in their iPods. The conversations are lively, the laughter is boisterous and physical rough-housing isn’t entirely uncommon.
In stark contrast with the Trapper Room, room 155 is quiet again. Another competitor has finished. As the round goes on, one of the last people to enter the room is Delaney. His is the last name on the chalkboard’s list. He stands in the back of the room until a vacancy is left in one of the desks, which he promptly fills. Delaney carries himself as a confident and focused competitor. He, like Langdon, also dresses in a black suit and dark blue collared shirt.
Delaney considers himself a competitive person. During high school, he played football and basketball. In the four years he has done forensics, he has focused more on debate.
Unlike Cornatzer who draws on the power of apathy, or Langdon who manages to overcome his nerves when it’s time to perform, Delaney doesn’t plan on getting over them at all.
“I absolutely suck the more comfortable I get or the more apathetic I get about it,” he says. “I think nerves benefit me.”
Delaney is the last to go for this round. His piece is about a man from Texas who finds out his son has been killed in Iraq. He considers it his “love/hate relationship,” which makes sense considering the time he spent getting his Texas accent down.
The piece, like many of the other five presented this round, is timely and socially conscious. They cover topics ranging from mental retardation to racism.
“By the time you get to college,” says Langdon, “they want to see something that’s going to affect the judge individually. Even if it doesn’t affect the judge personally, then they definitely want to see something that’s affecting our society.”
On Monday, Nov. 13, at 3:22 p.m., the entire forensics squad can be found in a classroom in the Orendorff building. Applause and cheers are heard as the official results of the weekend’s tournament are announced by Duane Fish, the team’s coach. As 22 of the team’s students competed, 18 took home trophies.
The individual event awards included Caiti Barski’s first place in communication analysis, Nolan Goubeaux’s sixth place finish and Kristian Satterlee’s third in persuasive speaking. In after-dinner speaking, Cornatzer placed second and Delaney took first. Cole Wandler received fifth place in extemporaneous speaking, while Zack Eckerdt took sixth place, Barski fourth place, and Chelsea Hampton first place dominated in program oral. Also, Hampton brought in a fifth place and Langdon a first place in poetry. Sara Holwenger placed fifth in informative speaking and Charlie Cordova placed fourth in prose. Duet awards went to Barski and Hampton for fourth place, Traci Hill and Langdon in third place, Cornatzer and Tim Hansen second place and Delaney and Langdon first place. NWC’s reader’s theater piece “DotCom” placed first over “The Voice of Meth” from Western Nebraska Community College.
In debate, open division speaker awards went to Jared Bressler, eighth, and Delaney, sixth. Novice division speaker awards went to Ben Brown, sixth, Eckerdt, fifth, Hansen, fourth and Goubeaux, second. Hansen and Goubeaux also defeated a team from Western Nebraska to win the tournament.
“This,” says Fish, “is why the rest of the region hates you.”
After the meeting, the team sticks around to look at the judges’ comments made for each round they were in. This is the first time they have seen them.
Some members seem to know the judges and their personalities. They grimace at the negative comments, and relish the good ones. If the criticism is deemed worthwhile, they’ll take it into consideration and use it to improve.
If not, some may just choose to follow Garrison Keillor’s example.
- A few people sprawl out on the floor asleep or lost in their iPods. The conversations are lively, the laughter is boisterous and physical rough-housing isn’t entirely uncommon.
Chelsea Hampton speaks as a rape victim during the poetry event held at the Northwest College Trapper Rendezvous tournament.
Caiti Barski, Grant Langdon and Chelsea Hampton perform during the reader’s theater performance on Thursday, Nov. 9 in Fagerberg Building room 70. While much like traditional theater, reader’s theater involves use of a script.
Brett Delaney leans over Caiti Barski’s shoulder impersonating a stalker during the readers theater presentation.
Bryce Cornatzer performs his after-dinner speaking piece Nov. 10 at the NWC Trapper Rendezvous tournament.
Text by Kimball Bennion, photographs by Sean Ryan