Last weekend, on September 20-21, the students of the Bowie Forensics team went to the Lake Travis TFA State Qualifier to compete with their skills in speech. They worked hard to earn top positions in the competition in order to confirm their spots going on to state.

The Forensics team covers both speech and debate. Speech is also known as oral interpretation. Oral interpretation takes a piece of literature, a movie, or a TV show, and allows the speaker to put their own spin and interpretation on it. There are multiple categories for both sections in order to ensure a variety of speakers.

Zoe Bouck took first place at the competition in the Humorous Interpretation category.

“Typically, there’s more than one character, and you play them all yourself,” Bouck said. “So, it’s a little goofy, and you kind of have to be okay with making a fool of yourself. You pop in and out of characters and change, and hope people laugh at you.”

Bouck and Jaden Davis will be going on to State in the Humorous Interpretation category and the Dramatic Interpretation category.

“I definitely didn’t expect to do as well as I have my first year,” Bouck said. “It’s very validating, to have people, not just my teammates and people I know, people I’ve never met before, say that ‘This is good.’ It’s a good motivator to keep going and, like, keep trying to do better.”

Below are the results for the Lake Travis TFA State Qualifier on September 20-21, 2019:

New State Qualifiers:

Zoe Bouck in Humorous Interpretation

Jaden Davis in Dramatic Interpretation

Third place Team sweeps

1st place:

Zoe Bouck in Humorous Interpretation

Jaden Davis in Dramatic Interpretation

Connor Snow and Zoe Bouck in Duet Acting

Connor Snow and Jaden Davis in Duo Interpretation

2nd place:

Ashlyn Dahl in Congressional Debate

Kaia Pierce and Sydney Reinhart in Duet Acting

Alyssa Shumaker in Poetry Interpretation

3rd place:

Aidan Garcia and Brennon Zavaleta in Duet Acting

Kaia Pierce in Program Oral Interpretation

4th place:

Arlo Craft and Erin Everette in Duet Acting

Nadia Petru in Prose Interpretation

5th place:

Morgan Gonzales in Novice Extemporaneous Debate

6th place: 

Alyssa Shumaker in Dramatic Interpretation

Connor Snow in Humorous Interpretation

7th place:

David Findley in Program Oral Interpretation

Quarterfinalists (top 8):

Conner Williams and Katie Golson in Public Forum Debate