Jackrabbits Forensics to highlight work in ‘Night Before Nationals’

Jackrabbits Forensics team members at South Dakota State University will highlight their favorite work of the season before they leave for their national competition in early April. 

The Night Before Nationals showcase is set for 5:30-7 p.m. Tuesday, April 2, in the South Dakota Art Museum lecture hall. The event is free and open to the public. 

The team will leave April 4 for the American Forensics Association National Speech Tournament, held April 5-8 at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. 

Andrea Carlile, SDSU director of forensics and assistant professor of communication studies, said team members will present eight performances at Night Before Nationals, showcasing some of their favorite and most successful work of the year. Performances will range from limited-preparation events to interpretive performances. 

“If you’re a lover of the arts and you also like to think critically about the world in which you live, that’s what our students will offer. We’ll have performances that feel like a one-woman show, and others are going to move you through their persuasion or through their humor. I think it’s something that folks in the Brookings community will really appreciate,” Carlile said. 

Twelve SDSU students are headed to nationals, having qualified for 33 individual events, a record for the university. Jackrabbits Forensics is one of SDSU’s most historical cocurricular teams. Starting in 1920, SDSU has the longest-running chapter of Pi Kappa Delta, the nation’s oldest speech and debate honor society, in South Dakota. 

“We have a really focused group of students, and our size is bigger than it has been in recent years,” Carlile said, with the team having an active roster of 18 students in the fall semester. 

“We know that we can’t rest on our laurels. We are continually practicing and have a workday the weekend before nationals. We have a goal of every student seeing every piece before we go to nationals,” Carlile added. “It is just really exciting to see the culmination of the students who are on this team — their efforts, their hearts, their energy — come together, and I think it’s reflective of the heart and energy my graduate students have put into it, too.” 

Students attending and the events they have qualified for include: 

• Abby Gilk – Prose, Impromptu, Duo, After-Dinner Speaking. 
• Kara Vetch – Impromptu, Duo, After-Dinner Speaking, Persuasion. 
• Rachael Guler – Informative, Extemporaneous, Persuasion, After-Dinner Speaking. 
• Sam Pappas – Informative, Extemporaneous, Impromptu. 
• Emma Arneson – Impromptu, Persuasion, After-Dinner Speaking. 
• Hannah Dayaget – Informative, Prose, Program Oral Interp, Poetry. 
• Taylor Sutton – Informative, Impromptu. 
• Raegan Modlin – After-Dinner Speaking. 
• Grace Kleinschmit – Prose, Program Oral Interpretation. 
• Jacob Ramp – Impromptu, Extemporaneous. 
• Meara McIntyre – Impromptu, Program Oral Interpretation, Drama. 
• Courtnie Forcier – Drama.