Tom Fink
Staff Writer
CLAREMORE — If Kaslin Salley’s friends have noticed she’s been talking to herself a lot lately, they needn’t be worried — she’s only practicing the characters she’s going to play when she competes at the National Forensic League (NFL) competition.
All nine of them.
Salley, 17, will be portraying nine different characters this summer with her Humorous Interpretation “Bobby Wilson Can Eat His Own Face.”
“The main character — Bobby Wilson — is a 15-year-old high school boy who’s sick and tired of people yelling at him at home and getting picked on at school,” explained Salley, a student at Claremore High School. “He runs away to join the circus, and once he gets there, he realizes his own life isn’t so bad so he goes back home.”
Salley has good reason to be excited about her trip to the NFL contest in Kansas City, Mo. — presently, she’s the only Claremore student who’ll be competing at the national level.
“I’m extremely excited,” she said. “I’ll be the first student (Claremore High School forensics instructor) Mrs. (Gina) Brown has had to make it to national competition, so I know she’s excited for me, too — I’m really looking forward to it.”
For those unfamiliar, “Humorous Interpretation” (often shortened to “Humorous Interp”) is an event in National Forensic League high school forensics competitions. It consists of a piece from any published work, edited to fit within a ten-minute span with a 30 second grace period.
“In the beginning, it was really hard to get all the different characters of the piece down — there’s Bobby, his mom, his “evil” kid sister, two teachers, a classmate, a carnival worker, and two circus freaks,” she said. “It sounds really weird, but to come up with so many different voices and facial expressions (for the different characters), I spent a lot of time in front of the mirror, just seeing what my face could do and listening to myself and what I could do with my voice— it’s a lot to keep track of in your head, especially when you’re doing it — you can’t see yourself, so you have to make sure you’ve got your scene down.”
Salley had competed at the state forensic level last year — in Humorous Interp and Dramatic Duet — but did not place.
“I was disappointed last year, but I think having competed at this level before will help me to be more prepared for this (national) competition,” she said. “I’ll be more familiar with how things go, which should help me to relax more and focus on my performance.”
While Salley said most of her time is spent with speech, she’s also on the varsity tennis team at Claremore High School, active in choir in school and church, and she plays the guitar.
Although she’s only a junior, Salley said she already knows what she wants to do after high school.
“After high school, I’m wanting to get my degree in college and become a speech coach at a high school, like Mrs. Brown,” she said. “She’s an excellent coach, who’s been a huge inspiration for me — she’s definitely one of my role models.”
Salley lives with her brother, Clay Salley, and her mother and step-father, Kip and Kelly Kabler, in Claremore. Her father is Cas Salley.
