For the fourth year in a row, Perham High School's Mock Trial team earned a chance to compete at the State Tournament.
What got them there?
Hard work... and a little extra motivation in the form of a hairdo.
"Before we went to any of the trials, we made a bet with Solberg to dye his hair if we made it to state," explained Mock Trial team member Amanda Snyder. As the team kept winning trial after trial this year, Coach Solberg's hair looked like it was in for a change.
"We won all five rounds to make it back to the Region Final," said Solberg. This year marked the 8th straight year of the team advancing to the Region Final. The day after the Region Final, and the team's qualification for State, Solberg made a special trip to Thrifty Cut. He went in brunette, and came out blonde.
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"I like to say it's a yellowish, orangish, dirty blond," said the recently dyed coach whose new do garnered him plenty of stares. As a trade-off for the hair coloring, the students bought their coach two new ties to wear at the State Tournament.
This year's Mock Trial team consisted of David Tomporowski, Abby Huebsch, Tim Fresonke, Jessica Spanswick, Lucas Wuebben, Amanda Snyder, Jenna Stege, Nikki Werner, and Diana Tastead. Coaches were Cory Solberg and Heidi Solberg. Lawyer help was much appreciated from attorney coaches Paul Hunt and Nate Welte.
Other highlights from the 2006-07 season included beating Minnewaska in the Region Final to advance to State and claiming the team's 5th Regional Championship.
The State Tournament was held March 14-15 in Rochester, with the team taking 5th place. Only three of the nine students on the team had been to State the year before. "We saw some creative things from other teams," said team member Jessica Spanswick. The crew plans to work even harder next year to come up with some schemes of their own.
According to Solberg, there are a little over 200 schools in the state that participate in Mock Trial. Every school in Minnesota works on the same case for the season. For more information about Mock Trial visit www2.mnbar.org/mocktrial.
