Every Saturday from late January through the end of March, the 15 members of Roeper’s High School Forensics Team each participated in one or more invitational tournaments. Competitors woke up very early to attend all-day competitions at locations from as close as Rochester Hills to as far as Lansing. At each tournament they performed a chosen literary selection or self-written speech up to five times, competing against other students from across the state.
This past weekend at Regionals competition, all 15 team members qualified for the MIFA IE High School State Tournament at Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, Michigan, to be held Friday, May 3 and Saturday, May 4. Advancing to States competition are Graycin Bleiberg, Justice Broughton, Johnathan Dinneweth, Meira Gable, Neel Grover, Kaitlyn Gruber, Caleb Hoover, Arielle Levy, Liv Mardiros, Eli Miller, Jeannelyn Newsome, Cosmo Steffke, and Anna Stuntz. In addition, Hollis Perry and Vaughn Roycraft both received automatic States advancement by being ranked in the top three in the state at the end of the invitational tournament season.
The Middle School Forensics team has also been busy preparing for the MIFA Middle Level State tournament this coming weekend, Saturday April 27, at Detroit County Day Upper School. The 13-member team competing are: Lilly Brinn, Bryce Broughton, Riley Gorelkin, Dushyanth Hettiarachchi, Timothy Hoover, Drexel Lanivich, Eli Ligon, Alex Nelsen, Sunny Shanker, JC Sheposh, Alphard Shi, Darius Stringer, and Robert Walinske.
Everyone is invited to attend either State tournament to support of these amazing Roeper Forensics team members; for more info email
forensics@roeper.org. In addition, the entire Roeper community, friends and family are invited to join the States-bound high school team members as the perform in the Acheson Theater, Friday, May 10 at 7 p.m., at Roeper’s Annual Spring Forensics Night. We hope to see you there!