By Turner Smith
Editor-in-Chief
Photos by Jack Heerhold

The speech program gathered for the annual Scheidecker Memorial Tournament, held this year at Metea Valley, and placed fifth overall out of 18 teams last Saturday.

The program found success that seems to be quite on par with the type of season they’re already having thus far, boasting 360 points in the tournament. The program also had seven speakers break to finals, or in other words, finish in the top six in their respective categories.

“There were a lot people that did really well. We’ve seen a lot of success up to this point, and that’s kind of what we expect to see,” senior Julia Howell said.

Junior James Ewer took first place overall in the Special Occasions Speaking category. Senior Vyssa Babu took first place overall in the Impromptu Speaking category. Howell took fourth place overall in the Prose Reading category. Senior Stephanie Sorich took fourth place overall in the Poetry Reading category. Senior Erika Oller took fourth place in the Dramatic Interpretation category. Junior Mary Carter and sophomore Allison Carter took fifth place overall in the Dramatic Duet Acting category. Junior Chris Danner took sixth place overall in the Impromptu Speaking category.

The opportunity to host the tournament provided inspiration for many of the speakers, and added to the reward of breaking to finals.

“It means a lot more to break at your own school… it just feels like you’re breaking at home,” Oller said.

However, it wasn’t just their success at home that made this tournament so important to the program. It was also the first tournament in which all five strings competed for the program, and the fact that all five strings, or levels of speakers, had success and came together in unison was huge for the program.

“We’ve had a lot of novices have success. It was great to see the returners and novices come together and have fun and support each other,” Howell said.