On Saturday, March 3, a large part of the Annandale High School speech team took a well deserved Saturday off but Coach Jennifer Kulm offered junior and senior members of the team an opportunity to speak at a meet being held in Buffalo.
Buffalo is a Class 2A school while Annandale is 1A. Thomas Huling, Mariah Benn, Andrea Paumen, Sierra O’Shea, Stephanie Prinsen and Skylar Storkamp went to Buffalo to give it their best. Annandale walked away with third place in the small school division with Mariah Benn taking an honorable mention, Andrea Paumen taking sixth place and the team of Prinsen and Storkamp placing third
On Thursday, March 8, the team traveled to Mound-Westonka for the Wright County Conference Meet. While the WCC meet hosts only seven schools, the competition is intense and the "geeks" were feeling the pressure.
Wright County Conference
Only the top four speakers in each category are honored. While Orono walked away with the coveted WCC school title, Annandale didn’t make it easy for them taking some very high stake awards. Walking away with honors were: fourth place, Katie Cleveland and Nick Stroud; third place, Thomas Huling and duo team Prinsen and Storkamp, second place Michelle Garmon and WCC champions, Andrea Paumen and Mariah Benn.
Benn, a senior, has been in speech for five years and has been a steadfast part of the team. She is one of the best examples of sticking with the craft of making a speech and polishing it until it shines. This year she is speaking in the Prose category. Prose is an eight-minute speech from a published writing, such as a book, fiction or non-fiction. Benn’s diligence paid off at the WCC with the championship title in Prose.
Spooky success
The team had one day to regroup and head to the Kimball meet on Saturday, March 10. Kimball is another school that is small in size but big in heart. Each year Kimball hosts a meet with a theme to make an ordinary Saturday meet extraordinary. The theme this year was the "Zombie Apocalypse." Kimball poked fun at their size by telling speechies that if they spoke in an entry way or locker room they knew the fastest exits and safest places to hide in the event of a real Zombie invasion.
Conquering the Zombies … and 21 other schools in Kimball were: honorable mention, Benn; eighth place, Emily Combs, seventh, Nick Stroud; sixth, Katie Cleveland; fifth, Christina Huling and the team of Holly Maile and Danai Kerbaugh; fourth, Kendra Hohenstien and Thomas Huling; second, Paumen and Michelle Garmon, and champions in Duo, Prinsen and Storkamp. Prinsen and Storkamp were also awarded coveted hand crafted felt "Zombies" to go with their medals.
The team also took home third place in the large school category and was awarded a very respected gold crowbar, to fend off Zombie attacks.
■ The team travels next to New London-Spicer on Saturday, March 17. Only one meet remains after that before Annandale hosts subsections on Thursday, March 29.