Pictured above (left to right): Ethan Jackson, Hunter Ayers, Eli Countryman, and Vellom Yue-Yaang
Pictured below: Chloe Meacham and Paul Giles
Nearly 50 students between the Perry and Adel-DeSoto-Minburn Speech Teams are participating in a district competition today.
Perry and ADM will both be in Ankeny for the Iowa High School Speech Association Individual Events District Contest. Perry Speech Coach Mandy Meyers describes that 14 students will compete and six of them are doing two separate events, and one is returning All-Stater with senior Ethan Jackson.
Sophomore Vellom Yue-Yaang is a foreign exchange student from Malaysia, who is performing in Original Oratory and Spontaneous Speaking, and tells Raccoon Valley Radio the adjustment he’s had to make compared to the debate team he was apart of back in his home country.
“The speech club is much more different, and in debate club, I’ve always just had to be very logistical with what I say. It’s about economics, it’s about politics and all that stuff, but for Original Oratory, which is what I’ve been focusing a lot on, it’s given me much more confidence to talk about what I want to talk about.”
According to ADM Speech Coach Jacque Seidl, 32 students will be performing in 41 categories including seven of them are involved in two events. Sophomore Chloe Meacham, who is performing in Prose, details that she’s had to learn how to control the reflection of her voice.
“I used to be really bad at changing tone when I was speaking to people, and so I’d get in a lot of arguments. So that’s something I’ve definitely gotten better at, thanks to Mrs. Seidl.”
Today’s competition is taking place at Ankeny High School. The students will need to receive a Division-I rating in order to advance onto state, which will be held on March 15th. Full list of students participating can be found below.
Perry
12th Grade
- Andres Zarate: Musical Theater and Radio News
- Ethan Jackson: Musical Theater and Poetry
- Hunter Ayers: Musical Theater and Acting
- Alexandra Aguilar: Storytelling
11th Grade
- Seth Borgeson: Prose
- Catherine Miranda: Prose
10th Grade
- Vellom Yue-Yaang: Original Oratory and Spontaneous Speaking
- Eli Countryman: Reviewing
- Genesis Gonzalez: Acting
- Analise Collins: Acting
- Abygale Steil: Prose
9th Grade
- Elyssa Hodges: Poetry and Expository Address
- Chloe Speck: Musical Theater and Acting
- Avery Johnson: Reviewing
ADM
- Madelyn Stevens – Story Telling
- Lydia Baker – Improv
- Jay Plotz -Improv and Acting
- Andrew Nelson – Musical Theater
- Avery Marple – Acting
- Lexi Cleghorn – Poetry
- Monika Kudkaite – Poetry
- Reyna Shirley-Brown – Poetry
- Haley Nelson – Prose
- McKinley Cornwell – Prose
- Chloe Meacham – Prose
- Ella Greer – Written Piece
- Kae Nau – Written Piece
- Paul Giles – Written Piece
- Riley Milburn – Written Piece and Musical Theater
- Julia Logue – Story Telling
- Rhyan Miller – Story Telling
- Caleb Klassen – Improv and Spontaneous Speaking
- Lea Harbison – Musical Theater and Spontaneous Speaking
- William Beebe – Musical Theater
- Ashton Gabler – Acting
- Danielle Georgick – Acting
- Zuri Moss – Acting
- Payton Taylor – Lit Program
- Lydia Georgick – Lit Program
- Noah Evans – Radio News
- Mason Willms – Radio News
- Kavya Patel – Spontaneous Speaking
- Brenna Seidl – Public Address
- Jaeley Doll – Public Address
- Liz Dirksen – Public Address
- Devin Morey – Expository Address
