The Greene County and Paton-Churdan Speech Teams each had five individuals at the state contest this past Saturday, and they earned some high marks.

Greene County Speech Coach Kelley Gray confirms that Randa Linberg earned straight Division I-ratings from the three room judges for Reviewing, as did Kamden Kinne for Expository Address, and Maggie Mikkelsen also in Reviewing. Then Gray says Mikkelsen received an overall Division I-rating, where two of the three judges gave I’s and one judge rated her a II, for her Literacy Program and Ava Binkley also received an overall Division I-rating with Reviewing. Finally, Maelee Schmidt got an overall Division II-rating for Storytelling.

Paton-Churdan Speech Coach Amanda Tasler confirms that Catarina Hobbs was the lone individual that earned a Division I-rating for Literary Program. She said the others received a Division II-rating, including Lily Trecker in Prose, Callie Martin for Poetry and Bridget Hobbs with Prose. She adds that Phoenix Hartman used a table as a prop for her improv piece and was unfortunately disqualified. 

Students that received a Division I-rating from the state contest are eligible to be nominated by their judges to perform at the Iowa High School Speech Association All-State Festival. Those will be released late this afternoon and Raccoon Valley Radio will update this story with those results for Greene County and Paton-Churdan.