Speech team awaits All State results

Katherine Mayhew/Staff Writer

The CFHS speech team competed at the state large group competition at Dubuque Senior High School on Saturday, Feb. 4. The groups that earned Division I ratings from all three judges might be chosen to compete again at the All State competition in Ames. Due to the weather-related issues of other schools on the western side of Iowa, if the Iowa High School Speech Association chooses anyone from Cedar Falls High School to go to All State, they will not know until Feb. 12 or later.

Junior Jillian Ross went to All-State with her large group ensemble act last year. “It’s huge. It’s really crazy and fun. All-State is such a big event, different than State and Districts. It’s on a completely different scale,” Ross said.

Sophomore Noah Miller, whose ensemble Fifteen Minute Hamlet earned three Division I ratings, has a chance of moving on to All-State. “I think we have a lot of All-State worthy acts, and I watched individuals All-State last year, so I hope I make it to State in group this year. I can’t wait for All-State results,” Miller said.

The bus left CFHS at 5:45 a.m. Saturday morning, but those going to competition had to arrive at the high school at 5:30 a.m. Senior Michaela Oehler said, “Tired? Tired? What is that? It’s completely worth it. Tired?” while curled up on top of a desk in the French room.Because of the jazz band concert later in the day, the speech team requested having all of their performances early. The team’s last performance was around noon, and returned to Cedar Falls around 3 p.m.

Not everyone who came to State competition was involved with speech team. Among others, sophomore Maddie Andreassen went to CFHS at 5:30 in her words: “To support our school, and they did amazing. I plan to join speech team next year,” Andreassen said.

Speech team coach Rebecca Kauten said she was happy with how the morning turned out. “I think our team was well represented. We had a number of very fantastic performances that ran the gamut of styles and performances that a team can perform at contest and every person who performed today from CFHS has several reasons to be proud,” Kauten said.