McKay brings home banner

Fairfield High School student Marina McKay?s solo mime ?The Martyr Joan? was selected for the Critic?s Choice Award at the Iowa High School Speech Association?s All-State Festival Feb. 18 at the Iowa State Center in Ames.

The Critic?s Choice Award is the highest honor for an IHSSA performance in the state, and a first for FHS in the area of solo mime.

Approximately 24,000 students started in several categories of speech competition at the district level from more than 347 schools. Only 132 schools had groups named as Outstanding Performances and less than 1,700 students earned the right to be named as Outstanding Performers. Of those performances, one in each of the 10 categories is chosen as the Critic?s Choice. That performance receives a banner that is displayed by the receiving high school for the following year. The Critic?s Choice award is considered the ?best performance? in that performance area in the eyes of the IHSSA. McKay, daughter of Michael and Dawn McKay, was coached by Kevin Hosbond and Betsie Wotherspoon of FHS.

?Marina?s performance that day was refined and transcendent ? beckoning tears and a lengthy standing ovation from the audience,? Hosbond said. ?While this banner is representative of the outstanding work Marina is capable of, it is also a testament to the strong mime program at FHS. We humbly dedicate it to all the mime students who have walked the halls of our high school.?

Also performing at the festival were the Hosbond-directed group mimes ?Skybound! Encounter with the Boy from the City of Wings ? or ? Seeds of Invention: Slipping the Bonds of our Tortured Earth? starring Sarah Flinspach, Lindsey Higgins, Makayla Kessel, Isaac Schloss, Gareth West and Josiah Wilbur; and ?With This Ring ? Hope Falls, Dakota Territory, 1888? starring Eden Bell, Makenna Dettmann, Lalita Martin, Mukund Martin, Claudia Sloat and Arielle Smith.

Two more groups, directed by Hosbond, honored at the festival as Outstanding Performances but not performing, were the musical theatre ?Jekyll and Hyde? starring Shannon Cochran, Michael Gookin, Forest Miller, Claudia Sloat, Darien ?Max? Sloat and Haven Tichy, and the acting ensemble ?Below the Belt? starring Marina McKay, Darien ?Max? Sloat and Haven Tichy.