Last Saturday, February 9, Whitewater High School’s Mock Trial team went to the Milwaukee County Courthouse for their regional competition. After working hard on the case for months, everyone was ready to finally perform it and see what happened. This year’s case is trying to prove or disprove that Lee Nash, a resident of the fictional town of Clearwater, Wisconsin, caused the fire that killed Larry Lumina, who was camping in a nearby campground. Whitewater High School had enough participants this year to have two teams participating in regional competition at Milwaukee County Courthouse.

As the group left at 6:45, people were anxiously practicing their parts, making sure everything was memorized before getting to competition. When they got there, nerves were somewhat calmer when the teams found out they would be facing each other for their first trial. Both then went on to go up against three other teams, and all performed well. Many memories were made both in and out of the courtroom, including Crystal Varaelis’s quip, “My plumbing was out,” when asked a question both outside the scope of the trial and against the rules. In the end, the inexperienced team did not win any of their trials and the experienced team won only one, but, as coordinator Mr. Chris Zimmerman said, “I’m kind of glad it came out like this. It will motivate [the teams] to try even harder next year.”