Acting, singing, debating, speaking and advanced placement classes; welcome to the daily life of junior Elana Lasonde.
Lasonde is a first year speech and debate member and has already won awards, and is the only student in speech and debate to win this year.
She was first awarded in October at a competition at Anderson high school for seventh place in a solo debate.
“I was nervous but really excited though, because I made it to the final round,” Lasonde said.
Communication applications teacher, Jesus Valles, is the debate and speech coach for the club at school.
“Elana is the competitor who’s done the best so far. She took seventh place out of 45 students at the season opener, which is pretty great,” Valles said. “It’s been a long time since Akins had anyone any one in the finals.”
Lasonde has also been incorporating her acting skills in to debate and speech. “Debate has been very influential in my acting, it’s put me in places I haven’t been before,” she said.
Another reason Lasonde has joined speech and debate is because of her unique passion for English.
“There are so many things about debate that is so philosophical and deep in to literature, and I’m a literature person,” Lasonde said. “I love writing, I’ve done it longer than I’ve acted.”
Lasonde and Valles are concerned that there aren’t enough people in speech and debate to compete fully as teams, and both hope more people will get involved with the two activities.
“There’s a multitude of reasons why you should join debate, it builds up your independence,” Lasonde said. “It’s realistic, it’s good and helps you for a career. It’s a fun club to go to.”
“It’s one of the few times where you get 10 minutes to have an entire room full of people listen to whatever you have to say,” Valles said.
Along with acting, debate and speech on Lasonde’s plate, she also sings, and it is one of her biggest passions.
“Singing is my life, it’s who I am,” Lasonde said. “I’ve done a lot of singing, this spring I’m doing a solo ensemble, I’m performing an Italian song that I’ve been working on for a long time.”
Lasonde is also considering doing debate in college and planning to go to school to major in singing and minor in acting.
“She’s a really talented performer and actress, there’s this force about her. There’s this crazy commitment to her, when she decides she want’s to do something she goes out and does it,” Valles said. “She’s very enthusiastic, and in a lot of ways she’s always hungry to be a leader.”
