NV taking six entries to all-state individual speech

In the high school speech world, there’s no higher honor than to make it to the all-state festival, and that’s where six Nodaway Valley events find themselves at the end of the individual speech season.

Head speech coach Lauren Ernst said the six events going to all-state is believed to be the most in school history. The event is Monday, March 30, at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls.

Performing all-state entries are Caroline Britten in public address, Micah Cronk in improvisation and Paul Kading in radio news announcing. Non-performing all-state entries are Kacie Ford in reviewing, Melanie Kilborn in expository address and Kading again in spontaneous speaking.

Ernst said since Britten and Ford are the only two seniors who were out for individual speech, she was most excited that those two made it. She’s also excited for Kading and Kilborn, who are repeat qualifiers.

Britten’s piece is entitled “The Failures of Kindness.” She said it has a really meaningful message that is all about kindness and treating other people well. According to the Iowa High School Speech Association, in public address, the speaker presents another person’s material that argues, persuades, moves or attempts understanding of human experience.

“I think the most impactful part of my speech is how it calls on us to be more kind to everyone and that small acts can cause a profound change in someone’s life,” Britten said. “I am thrilled ot take this piece to all-state my senior year with my friends.”

Ford is taking a reviewing piece about the book “Pride and the Prejudice.” In reviewing, you can speak on an array of topics, but while informing the audience about your topic, you’re required to review or critique it as well.

“My piece gives the background on the book, but it also talks about the characters and the author,” Ford said. “It talks about how her betrayal is current to the time because it’s 200 years old, talking in great detail about the book and characters themselves. This is my second year doing review. It’s very fun, but it’s difficult at times to not add too much personal, but you have to have it in there too.”

Kilborn’s expository address is all about her tunis sheep, a relatively rare breed she raises. The class is simply for informational presentations on whatever topic the speaker chooses.

“I wanted to educate people and advocate for this rare breed of sheep,” Kilborn said. “I ended up talking about the characteristics of the sheep, why they’re good for production and my story with them. You can use any sort of visual aid, so I chose a slideshow. On the slideshow, I put bullet points with some of my information and lots of photos of my sheep. I presented memorized at all of the competitions.”

Cronk’s event is slightly harder to prepare for, but he said what helps him the most is remaining calm and staying true to himself.

“Improv is a lot harder than some of the other things I’ve done with speech, but it’s still a lot of fun,” Cronk said. “I get to pull from three characters and two situations. From those, I can only choose two characters and one situation. I get to have a chair and can do pretty much anything with that chair. It’s just me, but I have to split between characters and keep on a track of not getting off track.”

Kading has competed in radio news before and is pleased with how his broadcasts have improved throughout his high school career. Competitors receive a packet of state and national news with sports, weather and a required commercial spot and have 30 minutes to prepare a five-minute news broadcast.

“I have to stay true to the news stories and can’t add my own information to the stories, but I can take some out to fit the time slot. What I like to do is add interesting transitions between the stories just to keep listeners engaged,” Kading said. “Over the years, I think I’ve refined my presentation from being a straight, regular newscast to make it into something that feels like an actual news segment.”

Spontaneous speaking participants deal with some of the same unpredictability that improv participants do, Kading said. Competitors draw three topics they can choose from to speak on.

“You really have to have a wide variety of knowledge to be able to talk about anything.Kading said. “I can be a little nerve racking, but I have a format I use through every one of my speeches and it’s pretty effective.”

Ernst said her hope for the students attending all-state is that they bask in the moment, because they’re earned it. She also said she can’t imagine being able to have so much success without assistant coaches Sam Grubisisch and Brenda Plymesser.