BD Speech claims D2 championship

22 area speech students competed at the state venue.

The Bruning-Davenport High School Speech Team ended their season in a big way Saturday after snagging the 2013 championship trophy from the annual Class D2 State Speech contest Saturday. The competition was held at the University of Nebraska-Kearney.

Thayer Central, Deshler and Shickley speech teams also competed at the state venue: Thayer Central finished sixth in Class C2, Deshler finished 12th in Class D1 and Shickley finished 19th in Class D2

The Bruning-Davenport students earned 110 points to take the trophy. “Assistant coach Brenda Thoene and I were very proud of the state qualifiers,” said BD Coach Anne Bowman. “All eight events had outstanding performances in their preliminaries and finals events. Seven broke finals and finished strong.”

The OID team including members Anthony Ferebee, Shane Heyen, Brenna Meyer, Jayden Otto, and Nolan Schroeder, managed to score 20 points for the Eagles’ team after taking the championship in that event. Individual championships, which also earned 20 points per event, included Tara Pavelka in persuasive speaking and Johanna Kluck in the serious interpretation of prose literature event.

Pavelka earned another 18 points for the squad after taking second place for her performance in informative public speaking and Kluck added another 10 points for the team after finishing sixth in oral interpretation of poetry.

Brenna Meyer added 12 points to the total score for her fifth place finish in informative public speaking while McKenna Schardt added the final 10 points for her sixth-place finish in persuasive speaking.

“We are proud of the entire team for all their success throughout the season,” Bowman added.

Rounding out the Bruning-Davenport performances was Chris Rohr with a tenth-place finish in extemporaneous speaking.

Thayer Central

For the Thayer Central team who finished with 66 points, Russ Heitmann led the way earning 20 points for his championship performance in oral interpretation of poetry and 18 points for his second-place win in persuasive speaking. Heitmann is Thayer Central’s first state champion for speech. Overall, the senior has collected six state speech medals in his four years on the team.

Team member Rachael Fangmeier also collected 18 points after turning in a second-place performance in informative public speaking.

Rounding out the Titans scoring was Rachel Heitmann who earned 10 points for her performance in the serious interpretation of prose literature category.

“We had a remarkable run this season,” said Thayer Central Coach Justin Bomar. “These kids put in the time, put in the effort, and were rewarded for their work.”

Final team performances came from John Kyker in extemporaneous speaking, Robert Dodes in entertainment speaking and Caryn Friesen in poetry.
“We are going to have some incredible talent graduating this year and they will be missed next year, that’s for sure,” Coach Bomar said. “But we also have some promising talent coming back, some great leadership, and our program is continuing to build in the right direction.”

Deshler

The Deshler Dragons finished with 22 points behind April Maschmann who earned 12 points for her fifth-place performance in informative public speaking and Hannah Lautner who earned 10 points for her sixth-place finish in poetry.

Others competing for the Dragon team included Craig Meyer who teamed up with Elizabeth Meyer in duet acting, then competed individually in humorous interpretation of prose literature; Noah Burger who competed in entertainment speaking; and Jared Pohlman who competed in extemporaneous speaking.

Shickley

Hannah Coy earned 12 points for the Shickley speech team after finishing fifth in the serious interpretation of prose literature category.