Sophomores bring home high speech scores

CEDAR RAPIDS — Sending five speech performances to the Iowa High School Speech Association’s Southeastern State contest at Xavier High School in Cedar Rapids, Winfield-Mt. Union High School returned home with two top division I ratings and three division II ratings.

The WMU Individual Speech Team that earned their places at state contest consisted of four sophomores. Both Ella Kann and Avalin Greiser earned Division I ratings for their performances and Monte Izatt and Beatrice Anderson received a division II ratings.

Kann stepped into After Dinner speaking for her first year of individual speech after two successful years performing with WMU’s group speech team.

“After Dinner speaking is basically giving a tribute to someone or an organization,” Kann explained.

. Kann opted for this category of performance after watching other students perform After Dinner speeches. She also saw this as an opportunity to honor her big sister Isabel.

“I choose to give a tribute to my old sister Isabel who is my greatest inspiration. For the after dinner speech I made up an organization she was being honored for. Isabel was being honored for being on the Big Sisters Council of Southeast Iowa,” she said. “I knew I wanted to tribute my sister because she's my role model while making it funny and sentimental.”

While Kann says gains confidence hearing the judges and audience laugh as they enjoy her performance, actually writing her speech for contest was difficult.

“I have never written a speech before,” she said. “I had a bunch of jokes and things I wanted to say, but I didn't know how to make it into speech form. Another thing I struggled with was learning to present it correctly. I got comments on just sniffling and swaying.”

For her first self-written speech and her first individual speech performance, though, Kann pulled out a score of one division II and two division 1 ratings landing her an overall division I.

“I plan on continuing to do speech and try new things along with inspiring others to join speech as well, as it is a great experience,” Kann said.

Greiser also brought home a division I rating from state speech contest. She earned that division I for her Literary Program performance and also earned a division II rating for her performance in the Prose category. This was her second year performing in both categories.

Greiser used Literary Program and Prose as opportunities to address topics she felt would impact the judges and audience watching her performance. For prose she focused on school lockdown drills and what student might notice during one. For her literary program, she chose an equally poignant topic of mental health and feelings.

“I did the same literary program last year but didn’t make it to state with it which is why I wanted to do it again this year,” Greiser said.

She was able to do this because of her scores from last year’s districts not qualifying her literary program for state last year, and actually, Greiser says seeing those division I ratings at districts this year for the piece is among one of her favorite parts of participating in speech.

“Seeing that I got ones for both of my pieces at districts taking me to state made me feel, I liked how it really gave me a confidence boost,” she said.

Greiser’s final division I and II ratings were across the board scores and she looks forward to continuing her speech career for the remainder of high school.

Anderson also performed pieces about the high school experience in the prose category at state contest.

“I did an article titles ‘Confessions of a High School Student Burnout,’” Anderson said. “It gives an inside view of what it feels like to be a student who is burnt out in high school.”

Izatt actually made his debut into speech this year with a performance in Solo Improv which landed him a chance to perform at state alongside three of his fellow sophomores.

Earning division II ratings across the board from judges at state and making the audience laugh, Izatt says he will be back to continue performing improv and other spontaneous-type performances.

“I’d say the beginning is the hardest part, but once you’re in, it’s awesome,” Izatt said. “I like it. I got people to laugh and that was my main goal.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com