Speech team places again

The talented and passionate Kimball High School speech team, who faced some tough competition at the Perkins County competition on Saturday, Jan. 30, had a great day according to coach Jennifer Dillinger and came home in fourth place out of 21 teams.

“At this particular meet, we were competing head-to-head against Class A/B schools. That is always difficult for us, because they have so many more students than we do. A team like Ogallala brings 50 students, while Kimball was competing with 12 on Saturday,” Dillinger said. “The fact that our 12 students were about to take 4th place (behind Ogallala, Scottsbluff, and Sidney) says a lot about their level of competition.”

In the Champion division Kiersten Anderson took sixth place in Entertainment Speaking, performing a piece she wrote about being short.

Taylor Muldoon placed fourth in Persuasive Speaking with a piece titled “Why Children should own pets,” and Leisha Casimiro’s speech about foot binding took second place in Informative Speaking.

In the Honor division, Kennedy Lewis placed fourth in Extemporaneous speaking, which required her to draw a current event topic and then take one hour to research, write, and perform a speech about it.

Nicholas Thomas-Lewis performed a poetry program on body acceptance that took first place and his persuasive speech titled “Why we should not fear failure,” placed fourth.

Kimball’s Oral Interpretation of Drama team, comprised of Taylor Muldoon, Kaden Adrian, Leisha Casimiro, and Nicholas Thomas-Lewis took first place with a piece title Little Suzy Sue’s God for All He’s Worth.

Jazylyn Harroun and Kiersten Anderson were recognized as the top novices in Duet Acting as was Mikylah Seely in the Poetry event.

“Our goal as a team is to get better with every competition. Speaking really is about personal growth. These students practice many hours every week, focusing in on all of the tiny aspects that make a speech great. They want to compete well, but it’s more than that,” Dillinger said. “Each of these students has either chosen or written a speech that they are passionate about. They strive to present it in such a way that the audience will connect with its importance.”

Additionally, Kimball will host their first speech invitational on Saturday, Feb. 13 with round one beginning at 8:30 a.m.

Schools from all over the Panhandle as well as opponents from SPVA have been invited and Dillinger hopes to see 12-14 schools come to compete.

Confirmations have already been received from Bridgeport, Chase County, Gering, Gordon-Rushville, Leyton, Sidney and South Platte.

“We’re hoping that people from the community will stop by and see what speech is all about, and just how hard these kids are working,” Dillinger said.