SHS Kicks Off Speech Season at Lincoln High Speech Tourney

By Clark Kolterman on December 15, 2008

Launch the media gallery 1 player

The Seward High Speech Team kicked off their 2008-2009 speech season with 13 members of the team competing in the annual Capital City Speech Meet at Lincoln High on Friday, December 12, 2008 in Lincoln, Nebraska. The tourney began at 2:00 pm and was held throughout Lincoln High School.  Some of the SHS Speech team could not compete due to athletic events or conflicts.  The team is coached by Clark Kolterman, SHS educator.

SHS Junior Michelle Ness won third overall in Persuasion, receiving a trophy and two ribbons for second place in two preliminary rounds.  Andrew Sorsen also placed first in a preliminary round in Extemp and Stephanie Rippstein placed second with her informative speech in  apreliminary round, each receiving ribbons. 

Students from Seward High receiving Superior ratings included Kaitlin Wright in Persuasion, Sydney DeBoer in Persuasion, Andrew Sorsen in Persuasion and Extemp, Stephanie Rippstein in Informative, Ryan Coufal in Extemp, Michelle Ness in Persuasion

Excellent ratings were presented to Josh McKey in Poetry and Serious Proses Literature, Megan Lee in Serious Prose Literature, Paul D. Myers in Serious Prose Literature, Drew Gremel in Informative, Sarah Garbers in Informative, Michelle Ness in Informative, Katie Thrailkill in Persuasion and Eric Heinicke in Extemp.

The Seward team finished ninth overall in team points, involving a tourney of 18 schools with 14 of them ranked as Class A schools!

The Seward team plans to attend Speech tournaments at Seward Concordia, Osceola, Aurora, David City and Milford.  Seward will host the Conference Contest on Monday, Feburary 23 all day at Seward High and participate in the NSAA B-3 District Speech Contest to be held at Milford.

School participating in the recent Capital City Tourney included Bellevue, Brownell-Talbot, Columbus, Crete, Fremont, Hastings, Kearney, East, North Star, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, Lincoln, Millard North, Millard South, Millard West, Norris, Pius X and Seward.