Several Greene County and Paton-Churdan students are gearing up for the Iowa High School Speech Association State Individual Speech contest.

Five Greene County High School students qualified in six entries for the state competition and one of them, senior Maggie Mikkelsen, will be performing in two. She talks about being a returning state qualifier from last year, she feels like to some degree there is a bit more pressure this time around.

“State is pretty much the same as districts. It’s just a little more stressful, I think especially for me this year because last year I went to All-State, so I kind of have the pressure of if I’m going to go back (to All-State) this year. But realistically, it’s just District 2.0 with a couple more judges.” 

Senior Kamden Kinne qualified with an Expository Address on awkward situations and how to get out of them. He explains why he went out for individual speech for the first time as a high school senior, when he has done large group speech for three years.

“I got convinced by Miss (Speech Coach Kelley) Gray. She’s like, ‘We have a category that’d be perfect for you.’ Because I’ve always been pretty decent at making some nice slideshows in the school and presenting on my feet. So the topic fit me perfectly. But adjusting from large group to individual where all the pressure is on you, it actually wasn’t so bad because you stand behind a podium, it’s pretty relaxed, and honestly when I performed (at districts) there was like four people in the room, so it wasn’t too bad.”      

Paton-Churdan had six students qualify for the state contest in seven categories. However sophomore Ella Tasler will not be attending due to a prior commitment, so P-C will send five students performing in five categories. Both high schools are going to Ames High School on Saturday. A full list of the students that qualified for state can be found below.

Greene County

Maggie Mikkelsen- Reviewing and Literary Program

Randa Linberg- Prose

Ava Binkley- Reviewing

Maelee Schmidt- Storytelling

Kamden Kinne- Expository Address

Paton-Churdan

Ella Tasler – Poetry and Literary Program

Phoenix Hartman -Improv

Catarina Hobbs – Literary Program and Poetry 

Lily Trecker – Prose

Callie Martin – Poetry

Bridget Hobbs – Prose