The Paton-Churdan High School Speech Team will be well represented at this Saturday’s Iowa High School Speech Association State Individual Contest.

Speech Coach Amanda Tasler says nine entries earned a Division I-Rating at the district competition on February 28th. Junior Kaliyah Minnihan was one of the students that qualified for state in Literary Program. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio advancing the piece that is about a girl who doesn’t want to be nice, but to be the person that she is unapologetically.

“I was actually supposed to do this piece last year, but I had surgery, an oral surgery, so I could not perform. And I was very devastated but very excited to do it this year. And when I found out that I got a (Division) I(-Rating) I was super excited and just so happy.”   

Junior Ella Tasler is performing in two entries with Poetry and Literary Program. She details that the poem is “Anger” by April Bernard and it is a serious story about the psychosis of the mind of a girl who kills someone. Tasler talks about why she picked the poem to perform.

“And I picked this piece because when I read poems I tend to read in a very dark voice and it’s hard for me to get into like this happy light mood. So, that’s something I figured out freshmen year and every year since I’ve kind of just picked kind of a darker piece and I’ve excelled at that.”  

Joining Tasler and Minnihan are Alivya Smith, Blaise Schilling, Phoenix Hartman, Lily Trecker, Maggie Reed, as well as Anatasia and Caterina Hobbs. The P-C Speech Team will be heading to Thomas Jefferson High School in Council Bluffs on Saturday.

Original Oratory – Alivya Smith, Blaise Schilling

Prose – Phoenix Hartman, Lily Trecker

Poetry – Ella Tasler, Maggie Reed, Anastasia Hobbs

Literary Program – Ella Tasler, Catarina Hobbs, Kaliyah Minnihan