Speech Contest in Bethel

     I decided to coach the high school speech team this year. I had a couple high school students that were interested. They had to pick a category and then pick their speeches. The categories were in English and Yup'ik and they could do expository, original oration, humorous, or dramatic. One of the students did a humorous and the other did dramatic. They both worked very hard practicing and getting their speeches just right. They had to give their speeches in front of the junior high and high school here in Eek, then we submitted videos of their speeches. The speeches were reviewed and scored and the top five students in each category got to travel to Bethel to compete. Both of my students made it, which was really exciting.

Elena and Florence getting ready to take off for Bethel.

     On November 11th and 12th we were in Bethel for the competition. They had a preliminary round on Tuesday night and then the finals were on Wednesday. Both of my students did awesome and I was so proud of how hard they worked. We got to see some really great speeches and the competition was tuff. I am proud to say that Elena placed third in the humorous category and Florence placed first in dramatic.

Getting their awards.

Yay trophies! Go Eek!

So proud of these girls, they worked very hard and it payed off. 

     The top two winners in all the English categories get to go to Anchorage and compete in the Alaska State High School Drama, Debate & Forensics Competition. So Florence and I will be traveling to Anchorage sometime in February for the competition. It was a really great experience for them and I look forward to doing it again next year. Hopefully, I will have more students interested.