For Jeremy Lippitt, it’s always just been about making people laugh. The Grand Valley State University sophomore never thought that being funny would make him anything other than the class clown.

To his surprise, Lippitt recently won Last Laker Standing, an annual stand-up competition hosted by Spotlight Productions, edging out nine other student comedians.

“I didn’t expect to win,” he said. “It’s just nice to get time in front of an audience and time on stage.”

Lippitt, a finance major from Memphis, Michigan, is not a seasoned performer. Including the Last Laker Standing competition, he’s only been performing for a few months, but has been writing comedy since he was in high school.

“The first time that I ever made an entire classroom of people laugh, that was it,” Lippitt said. “I wanted to be able to do that for other people.”

Lippitt said he’s always been funny, so he started writing bits, but never had the chance to go out and perform until he came to GVSU.

“(Performing) completely happened by accident,” Lippitt said.

He had a class that required him to go to different events, and one of those events was Saturday Night Dive, a monthly open mic hosted by Spotlight Productions.

Soon after, Lippitt found himself getting more involved with GVSU’s comedy scene. He was part of a group of people who started the club Free Speech Standup, a comedy group aimed at workshopping bits and improving stage performances through writing sessions and other events.

“The best way to go about writing is to never stop writing,” he said. “A bit is never really finished. You write it, you perform it, you try to record yourself to see what you did good and what you did badly and try to work on it until you can get it as good as you can.”

Soon after, he took the stage at Saturday Night Dive. Since he’s a student, Lippitt draws a lot of his inspiration for bits from his daily life.

“When I look for material, it’s just something that strikes me as funny,” he said. “If you find it funny, somebody in the audience will also find it funny.”

For Last Laker Standing, the contestants couldn’t reuse material if they moved on to finals. Lippitt said that writing completely new material for his seven-minute set for semi-finals was a gamble that paid off in the end.

“It was pretty surprising to me,” he said. “I feel like I performed well and that my jokes landed well.”

Last Laker Standing is a two-part competition. After auditions, 10 comedians are chose to move on to semi-finals, the first event, and then the top five move onto finals, with the top three being recognized. The judges and audience vote on their favorites, determining who moves on and, ultimately, who wins.

Abby Lyons, comedy chair for Spotlight Productions, said that the event had more attendees than she expected.

“Overall, I would say there were at least 200 people at each event,” Lyons said. “I was excited.”

Lippitt said that he knew that he had to just go on stage and be himself.

“There are some things that I talk about that are a little more serious and some things that I talk about that are a little more silly,” he said. “You really have got to be your own person. You have to have your own voice and your own way to come across as yourself.”

He knew most of the comedians who made it into the top 10, which made him feel more at ease.

“Everybody that performed is very talented,” he said. “I’m happy I won against such great competition.”

Lippitt said that though comedy will likely remain just a hobby for him, he’s looking forward to keeping at it and getting better.

“With performing, you’re never done,” he said. “You always keep trying to refine it.”

Free Speech Standup has an event coming up on March 24 in the Kirkhof Center. For more information, visit the group’s OrgSync page.