Sports & Clubs
Forensics 2016: Reagan IB High School
Alexis Torres
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“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength” (Arnold Schwarzenegger).
Since 2008, Ms. Baker, an English and theatre teacher here at Reagan, has been the head coach of the forensics team. Assisted by Mr. Puddicombe (English teacher) and Mrs. Dubey (one of our school counselors) by her side. Under state law, forensics is a sport. Since that time, the RRHS forensics team has been the only sport team to win a state championship. “If you’re being different, then own it.” - Ms.Baker Last year’s team had a total of 60 participants. The rule is, if you weren’t a part of the previous year's forensics team, you will have to get interviewed by Ms.Baker. After the interview, she will inform you of the category she believes you would be most successful in, with also taking into consideration your interests. When you join the team, you are a part of two main national organizations. In this case, I am referring to the National Speech Organization. But the total organization is combined of both speech and debate. |
In order to be a part of the forensics team, each member has to pay a $20 fee and have a GPA of 2.0 or higher. If one is unable to meet either of these two requirements, he/she will have to wait until the second semester to be a part of the team. Practices take place on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, from 3 to 4:30 p.m., but each participant will only have to attend once a week according to the day they chose- while tournaments are on Saturdays. Most tournaments are at Reagan but for those that aren’t, the RRHS forensic team will not travel more than 60 miles to compete. But because we are in Milwaukee, it isn’t that hard to find schools that hold forensics meets.
Once everyone has a category and a piece, the coaches sign up each eligible participant two weeks in advance. When the tournaments come into season, each competitor must dress appropriately when representing our school. Wearing khakis, dresses, heels, ties, and other forms of formal attire is highly encouraged. Wearing jeans is not an option.
“The more categories we can cover the greater the success rate.” - Ms.Baker
When referring to the National Speech and Debate Association website, you can gain insight into what the association offers. This includes, how to become a member of NSDA, the different resources available and provided on the site, upcoming events, and different programs offered. According to the site, “ [It] is the world’s largest honor society devoted to speech and debate activities, and bestows numerous awards and recognition to students, coaches, and schools. [They] also host the largest academic competition in the world, the National Speech & Debate Tournament. In addition, [they] provide numerous benefits to [the] members, such as resources, programs, publications, and scholarships.” ( National Speech & Debate Association) Every year the national competitions are held in different cities. In order to become a full fledge member of NSDA, the participant will have to collect an average of 25 points. Being a member will allow you to qualify for Nationals. Nationals only allows 15 members of each qualifying school's forensics team to participate. When averaging it out, there would have to be 3 representatives for each category corresponding with each school. Last year there were 7 finalists in solo humor 3 of which were from Ronald Reagan. This year, MPS and Central Office refuse to help fund Reagan’s forensics team so they can go to Nationals. So this year they will be fundraising so they can once again be represented at the national tournament.
According to Ms.Baker, by going to Nationals, you can learn the experience needed to become a captain for the following year. On Reagan’s forensics team, there are several coaches. The participants get to decide which day is good for them and then their responsibility is to show up for rehearsal on that particular day, every week. The coaches then decide which day is good for them and are then assigned those particular students. After a few weeks the captains switch assigned groups. For our team, they have created what is called a mock tournament. A mock tournament is a practice at the school - the coaches hire judges to come and listen to the students pieces and then grade them as if it were a real competition. This is held on January 3rd, This event allow the performers to get a taste of what the competitions will be like while also getting feedback that could benefit them.
“Getting feedback from different people can make you get better” - Ms.Baker
The first competition is marked to be at Marquette High School. When competing, the competitor can participate in at least 2 categories. However, this depends on the school he/she is competing at and the rank of the competition. At the state finals, each school is only allowed to bring a total of 25 competitors. The individuals are chosen based on their category and attendance.
In recent times, a new category has been brought to the table. It is called Congress. The point of this category is for a group of students to write a bill and then argue their bill to the other students from competing schools. Congress is to begin at the end of January and run through the end of April. The only difference in tournaments is that instead of them being initiated on Saturdays, they are on fridays. This is good for those who make their mark in the Congress category because they then don’t have to wake up early enough to make it to the Saturday meets.. Mr.Larson-Rolf (an english teacher at RRHS) has volunteered to help run the Congress category. But the only way they can get this up and running if if they have 6 to 8 students sign up.
So support the Reagan Forensics Team on 2016!
(National Speech & Debate Association | Connect. Support ... (2016). Retrieved October 17, 2016, from https://www.speechanddebate.org/ )
In order to be a part of the forensics team, each member has to pay a $20 fee and have a GPA of 2.0 or higher. If one is unable to meet either of these two requirements, he/she will have to wait until the second semester to be a part of the team. Practices take place on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, from 3 to 4:30 p.m., but each participant will only have to attend once a week according to the day they chose- while tournaments are on Saturdays. Most tournaments are at Reagan but for those that aren’t, the RRHS forensic team will not travel more than 60 miles to compete. But because we are in Milwaukee, it isn’t that hard to find schools that hold forensics meets.
Once everyone has a category and a piece, the coaches sign up each eligible participant two weeks in advance. When the tournaments come into season, each competitor must dress appropriately when representing our school. Wearing khakis, dresses, heels, ties, and other forms of formal attire is highly encouraged. Wearing jeans is not an option.
“The more categories we can cover the greater the success rate.” - Ms.Baker
When referring to the National Speech and Debate Association website, you can gain insight into what the association offers. This includes, how to become a member of NSDA, the different resources available and provided on the site, upcoming events, and different programs offered. According to the site, “ [It] is the world’s largest honor society devoted to speech and debate activities, and bestows numerous awards and recognition to students, coaches, and schools. [They] also host the largest academic competition in the world, the National Speech & Debate Tournament. In addition, [they] provide numerous benefits to [the] members, such as resources, programs, publications, and scholarships.” ( National Speech & Debate Association) Every year the national competitions are held in different cities. In order to become a full fledge member of NSDA, the participant will have to collect an average of 25 points. Being a member will allow you to qualify for Nationals. Nationals only allows 15 members of each qualifying school's forensics team to participate. When averaging it out, there would have to be 3 representatives for each category corresponding with each school. Last year there were 7 finalists in solo humor 3 of which were from Ronald Reagan. This year, MPS and Central Office refuse to help fund Reagan’s forensics team so they can go to Nationals. So this year they will be fundraising so they can once again be represented at the national tournament.
According to Ms.Baker, by going to Nationals, you can learn the experience needed to become a captain for the following year. On Reagan’s forensics team, there are several coaches. The participants get to decide which day is good for them and then their responsibility is to show up for rehearsal on that particular day, every week. The coaches then decide which day is good for them and are then assigned those particular students. After a few weeks the captains switch assigned groups. For our team, they have created what is called a mock tournament. A mock tournament is a practice at the school - the coaches hire judges to come and listen to the students pieces and then grade them as if it were a real competition. This is held on January 3rd, This event allow the performers to get a taste of what the competitions will be like while also getting feedback that could benefit them.
“Getting feedback from different people can make you get better” - Ms.Baker
The first competition is marked to be at Marquette High School. When competing, the competitor can participate in at least 2 categories. However, this depends on the school he/she is competing at and the rank of the competition. At the state finals, each school is only allowed to bring a total of 25 competitors. The individuals are chosen based on their category and attendance.
In recent times, a new category has been brought to the table. It is called Congress. The point of this category is for a group of students to write a bill and then argue their bill to the other students from competing schools. Congress is to begin at the end of January and run through the end of April. The only difference in tournaments is that instead of them being initiated on Saturdays, they are on fridays. This is good for those who make their mark in the Congress category because they then don’t have to wake up early enough to make it to the Saturday meets.. Mr.Larson-Rolf (an english teacher at RRHS) has volunteered to help run the Congress category. But the only way they can get this up and running if if they have 6 to 8 students sign up.
So support the Reagan Forensics Team on 2016!
(National Speech & Debate Association | Connect. Support ... (2016). Retrieved October 17, 2016, from https://www.speechanddebate.org/ )
"I'll Stop Wearing Black When They Make a Darker Color."
Mya Bailey
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Wednesday Addams understands me far too well. What brings me to reference the gold genre called The Addams Family, you may be wondering? Reagan is finally running their annual school musical, and this year’s topic will be a little dark. The Addams Family, a franchise about the “ideal family” of strange yet fascinating beings, is where we place our pinpoint in this year’s stage play. I think it’s a phenomenal choice for this to be a musical at my very own school because I used to be obsessed with The Addams Family. It’s like I’m waltzing down memory lane, and every old thought is vividly flashing back through my head. Anyway, the play, however, is in one of its earliest stages of developments, so auditions are all around us. The musical auditions will be taking place on October 24 through October 28. The informational meetings for the exhilarating musical, however, took place on Thursday, October 20. I attended the informational meeting myself, and I sharenew information I learned below. In addition, I got around to gathering with the kind Ms. Baker to ask her some questions that I personally wanted to know and that I thought would be helpful to know about this musical. |
Our conversation went as followed:
Me: “What influenced you to choose “The Addams Family” as this year’s musical”
Ms. Baker: “ A couple years ago, Ms. Breitbarth and I decided that we wanted to kind of rotate every other year. Do an older musical one year, a classic show, and then a newer show… We did “Hello Dolly” last year and so this year would be a “newer” show. We had seen snippets of “The Addams Family”; A lot of local High Schools had done it in the past three years. We really like the music…..that was kind of the impetus of choosing the show. What’s interesting is, “Theatre Folk” which is a national organization that promotes teaching theatre.... have done a survey and they found that this is the #1 show that high schools are doing this year. “
Me: “What are you and your “team” looking for when a student auditions?”
Ms. Baker: “ We look at all three areas; Singing, dancing, and acting. Students will, on Monday (October 24t) , be given short cuttings from the show. There are three different pieces that they can choose from to audition with on Wednesday (October 26). They’ll also, on Monday, learn about a minute dance from the song “When you’re in Addams”, and they’re going to learn about a couple different cuttings from some of the songs. On Tuesday students will all come in, individually, and sing one of the cuttings they learned…. Then on Wednesday they come in and they show us the dance; Usually we have four come in and watch four at a time. And then two of them will do their dialogue audition, repeating this with all people auditioning, and leave. Then on Thursday we do callbacks, and so we decide “we want to see these students potentially play the role of Morticia or we want to see these students potentially play Gomez.” Callbacks are a mix of acting, singing, dancing: We want to see how kids are working together, we wanna see what kind of chemistry exists with them together. “
Me: “Does every musical take around the same amount of time to produce each year?”
Ms. Baker: “We have our musical scheduled for the weekend after Martin Luther King holiday. We have done that every year for the last seven years. We do that because most of the students in Reagan who are active in the performing arts programs ( Etc. ), they’re also athletes and most athletes at Reagan participate in either fall or spring sports. So the musical falls between winter sport season because Reagan has the fewest amount of students participating in winter sports. You just cannot be in the musical and be doing a sport; there isn’t just any time in the day. That’s why we have auditions on the last week of October, we always rehearse in November, December, and January; The show is always the weekend after Martin Luther King holiday.
Me: “How much work and effort should a student joining the musical have?”
Ms. Baker: “Students who want to audition have to have a 2.0 gpa, and we do require that this is an academically focused school and we want students at a C average, which I don’t think is asking that much. Most students who are casted in the chorus rehearse anywhere from two to three days a week in November and December. In January, all students, cast, crew, pit members, are present five days a week. It is a huge time commitment. We have had students who are casted in lead roles, and rehearsed four days a week in November and December and five days a week in January and still graduated valedictorian in their class.
Me: “ If you could explain the play in 3 words to get people hyped up for what to come then what would they be and why?”
Ms. Baker: “ Three words...Intrigue, Love, Zombies. Intrigue because the story is hilarious. Love because it’s a love story about Wednesday Addams, who is considered a not normal child, falling in love with a normal boy from Ohio, Lucas Benecki. And zombies because all of the ancestors of The Addams Family are on stage for much of the show, and they’re dressed in white with pale makeup, so they look like zombies. “
My interview with Ms. Baker was delightful, and my anticipation towards opening night is increasing greatly. She tells us the plot of this year’s musical which is a love story about Wednesday Addams of the Addams Family. If you do plan to join the musical, however, you must have a clear schedule because putting your effort into this stage play is important for its success.
To get a little up close view and receive more useful information about the Addams Family musical, I went to the information meeting on Thursday, October 20. It displayed very energetic vibes, and the whole feeling of the atmosphere was extremely pleasant to be around. The meeting addressed information I had already known, but they did inform everyone listening that the roles for the musical will be released into public viewing on Saturday. This caused every student in the room to freak out, and the excitement filled smiles were super contagious.
In conclusion, this year’s musical will not only take a lot of hard work, effort, and support, but will also introduce new talent to those who choose to venture their way into being a part of it. A Ronald Reagan musical is one that truly represents the wonderful abilities and talents that the student body can display into a performance.
Me: “What influenced you to choose “The Addams Family” as this year’s musical”
Ms. Baker: “ A couple years ago, Ms. Breitbarth and I decided that we wanted to kind of rotate every other year. Do an older musical one year, a classic show, and then a newer show… We did “Hello Dolly” last year and so this year would be a “newer” show. We had seen snippets of “The Addams Family”; A lot of local High Schools had done it in the past three years. We really like the music…..that was kind of the impetus of choosing the show. What’s interesting is, “Theatre Folk” which is a national organization that promotes teaching theatre.... have done a survey and they found that this is the #1 show that high schools are doing this year. “
Me: “What are you and your “team” looking for when a student auditions?”
Ms. Baker: “ We look at all three areas; Singing, dancing, and acting. Students will, on Monday (October 24t) , be given short cuttings from the show. There are three different pieces that they can choose from to audition with on Wednesday (October 26). They’ll also, on Monday, learn about a minute dance from the song “When you’re in Addams”, and they’re going to learn about a couple different cuttings from some of the songs. On Tuesday students will all come in, individually, and sing one of the cuttings they learned…. Then on Wednesday they come in and they show us the dance; Usually we have four come in and watch four at a time. And then two of them will do their dialogue audition, repeating this with all people auditioning, and leave. Then on Thursday we do callbacks, and so we decide “we want to see these students potentially play the role of Morticia or we want to see these students potentially play Gomez.” Callbacks are a mix of acting, singing, dancing: We want to see how kids are working together, we wanna see what kind of chemistry exists with them together. “
Me: “Does every musical take around the same amount of time to produce each year?”
Ms. Baker: “We have our musical scheduled for the weekend after Martin Luther King holiday. We have done that every year for the last seven years. We do that because most of the students in Reagan who are active in the performing arts programs ( Etc. ), they’re also athletes and most athletes at Reagan participate in either fall or spring sports. So the musical falls between winter sport season because Reagan has the fewest amount of students participating in winter sports. You just cannot be in the musical and be doing a sport; there isn’t just any time in the day. That’s why we have auditions on the last week of October, we always rehearse in November, December, and January; The show is always the weekend after Martin Luther King holiday.
Me: “How much work and effort should a student joining the musical have?”
Ms. Baker: “Students who want to audition have to have a 2.0 gpa, and we do require that this is an academically focused school and we want students at a C average, which I don’t think is asking that much. Most students who are casted in the chorus rehearse anywhere from two to three days a week in November and December. In January, all students, cast, crew, pit members, are present five days a week. It is a huge time commitment. We have had students who are casted in lead roles, and rehearsed four days a week in November and December and five days a week in January and still graduated valedictorian in their class.
Me: “ If you could explain the play in 3 words to get people hyped up for what to come then what would they be and why?”
Ms. Baker: “ Three words...Intrigue, Love, Zombies. Intrigue because the story is hilarious. Love because it’s a love story about Wednesday Addams, who is considered a not normal child, falling in love with a normal boy from Ohio, Lucas Benecki. And zombies because all of the ancestors of The Addams Family are on stage for much of the show, and they’re dressed in white with pale makeup, so they look like zombies. “
My interview with Ms. Baker was delightful, and my anticipation towards opening night is increasing greatly. She tells us the plot of this year’s musical which is a love story about Wednesday Addams of the Addams Family. If you do plan to join the musical, however, you must have a clear schedule because putting your effort into this stage play is important for its success.
To get a little up close view and receive more useful information about the Addams Family musical, I went to the information meeting on Thursday, October 20. It displayed very energetic vibes, and the whole feeling of the atmosphere was extremely pleasant to be around. The meeting addressed information I had already known, but they did inform everyone listening that the roles for the musical will be released into public viewing on Saturday. This caused every student in the room to freak out, and the excitement filled smiles were super contagious.
In conclusion, this year’s musical will not only take a lot of hard work, effort, and support, but will also introduce new talent to those who choose to venture their way into being a part of it. A Ronald Reagan musical is one that truly represents the wonderful abilities and talents that the student body can display into a performance.
Some Reaganites like math and are good at it…
Freedom Gobel
Next time you see Raven Thompson, Lisa Theppanya, Emily Rasmussen, or Aidan Riley, make sure to yell loud and clear, “CONGRATULATIONS!”
Though many of us absolutely despise our dreaded math classes, a select few couldn’t get enough mathematical goodness from their teachers and are a proud to be participants of the first math meet of the 2016-17 school year. As previously stated, honorable mentions go to four exceptional math lovers: Raven Thompson, Lisa Theppanya, Emily Rasmussen, and especially Aidan Riley for their success in this event on October 18.
Aidan Riley received the highest score of the group- four out of six problems correctly completed. He said, “I like math, and competing in math competitions makes my resume more impressive. I’ve got nothing to lose.”
If you’re looking to compete in the next math meet, contact Mr. Moriarity for more information. Participants are always appreciated! If math isn’t your thing, sit back and let the little geniuses do the work.
Though many of us absolutely despise our dreaded math classes, a select few couldn’t get enough mathematical goodness from their teachers and are a proud to be participants of the first math meet of the 2016-17 school year. As previously stated, honorable mentions go to four exceptional math lovers: Raven Thompson, Lisa Theppanya, Emily Rasmussen, and especially Aidan Riley for their success in this event on October 18.
Aidan Riley received the highest score of the group- four out of six problems correctly completed. He said, “I like math, and competing in math competitions makes my resume more impressive. I’ve got nothing to lose.”
If you’re looking to compete in the next math meet, contact Mr. Moriarity for more information. Participants are always appreciated! If math isn’t your thing, sit back and let the little geniuses do the work.