Several Paton-Churdan and Greene County High School students are competing today at the Iowa High School Speech Association State Individual Contest.

Paton-Churdan Speech Coach Amanda Tasler says nine students are performing in four categories, including Original Oratory, Prose, Poetry and Literary Program. This is the first year that junior Maggie Smith is participating in individual speech and she qualified in Poetry. She talks about the narrow time frame when switching from large group speech to individual speech.

“Yeah, it was difficult because in large group I could just be a little bit quieter, and you didn’t have to hear me, and if I messed up you wouldn’t know. But by doing individual speech I really had to focus on how I worded things and my enunciation. So it was a lot more difficult, I would say.”

Greene County Speech Coach Kelley Gray notes that two students are at state with seniors Savannah Lansman in Expository and Prose, along with Becca Anderson in Poetry. Lansman describes what she is looking forward to the most at state.

“I’m most looking forward to getting to go and perform this speech again and watching the people in the room get a good laugh out of it. They’re both very funny pieces and it gives me a lot of freedom to just have fun with it and be myself in this speech.” 

Both high schools are in Council Bluffs today at Thomas Jefferson High School. Raccoon Valley Radio will have results from today’s contest early next week.

PC Speech

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 

GC Speech

Savannah Lansman – Expository and Prose

Becca Anderson – Poetry