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GBHS Forensics qualifies a complete entry for state
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3rd Place Sweepstakes winners at Hays: front row: CJ Gibson, Jayln Lear, Bayle Sandy, and Malachi Wasson; back row: Isaiah Smith, Patrick Heath and Dalton Ruble
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Medalists at Lyons: Dalton Ruble, Daniel Abbott and Skylar Fletcher

When the KSHSAA State Championship Forensics tournament arrives on May 4, the GBHS squad will be competing with a full team of 16 entries. This last week the team qualified its last two entries for the tournament.

On Saturday, the Great Bend High School forensics team brought home 3rd place from the Hays High 15th Annual Goodchuck Invitational. All seven Panther speakers and actors competed in finals competition.  

C.J. Gibson qualified for state by bringing home a 2nd place in Informative Speaking. The Panthers are just one entry short of a full slate for the KSHSAA tournament on May 4th. Informative was a good event for GBHS because, in addition to Gibson, Patrick Heath was awarded first place, Bayle Sandy finished fourth and Dalton Ruble came in seventh. Gibson also captured the bronze in Program of Oral Interpretation.  

Another strong event for the local forensics team was Humorous Interpretation. Patrick Heath led the Panthers in this event with a third place.  Isaiah Smith was 5th and Malachi Wasson finished 6th in Humorous Interpretation. The team of Smith and Wasson were also 4th in Duet Acting, and Wasson was 5th in Extemporaneous Speaking.

GBHS also won hardware in Dramatic Interpretation. Jalyn Lear placed 2nd and Bayle Sandy finished 5th.  

At Lyons High School on Monday evening, April 8, three students represented GBHS, and all three captured medals. Junior student, Daniel Abbott, led the team by winning both ten-minute informative Speaking and Prose Interpretation. In addition to these two events, Abbott had already qualified a Program of Oral Interpretation. He will need to choose two of these three events to compete with in May.

Two Panther freshmen also made it to finals. Dalton Ruble placed 4th in ten-minute Informative Speaking and Skylar Fletcher finished 4th in seven-minute Informative Speaking.  

Forensics coach, Kim Heath, stated, “It was one of our goals at the beginning of the season to qualify a full entry for the state tournament. I am so excited that all of the students have stepped up to perfect their performances and achieve this goal.”

This weekend will find the forensic students at the West Kansas NSDA District Tournament held in Newton. This very competitive competition will qualify the top four contenders in each event for the national speech and debate competition this summer in Dallas, Texas.