The Iowa High School Speech Association All-State Individual Events Festival is next week and two Greene County students are going to participate.

Senior Gavin Vander Linden and junior Maggie Mikkelsen were nominated at the state contest by the judges to perform their respective “reviewing” pieces at All-State. Mikkelsen is doing a review of the book, “The Murder of Mr. Wickham” and she describes her reaction of being nominated for All-State.

“If I’m being honest, I didn’t really think much (about it). I just got the text from Ms. (Kelley) Gray, I was like, ‘Oh, cool. I get to go to UNI, that’s great.’ But now that I actually had time to reflect on it, I’m pretty happy.”   

Vander Linden is reviewing “Rogue I” and the similarities between that movie and the six original Star Wars movies that George Lucas directed. He talks about performing in his fifth All-State activity, which he has qualified for All-State in choir three times and was in All-State for Large Group Speech.

“I don’t know, it’s kind of got that aura finality to it. It’s a nice way to end it. I mean I can sing and all of that, so I’ve done choir stuff. But it’s nice to show, ‘Ya I can do other stuff besides just that.’ So it’s bittersweet but mainly sweet.”   

The All-State Festival takes place on Monday on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa.