Cromwell-Wright earned the Section 7A runner-up trophy at the Section Speech Tournament held Friday, March 30, at Hibbing Community College, with five students qualifying for state. Nineteen schools competed in Section 7A, including Virginia, Ely and Duluth Marshall.
Headed for state competition are Lenore Collman/Kayle Johnson in Duo Interpretation (second place), Annie Morrell in Humorous Interpretation (first place), Cheyenne Lemm in Serious Prose (first place), and Emily Warpula in Storytelling (third place). They are all juniors. Emily Warpula is making her second state return trip after last year qualifying in Prose.
Collman and Johnson are performing the story of the mongoose and the evil cobras from the classic tale by Rudyard Kipling, "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi." Morrell is performing a spin-off of the Ugly Ducking story called "Ruffled Feathers." Lemm is performing a powerful and emotional climax of mother's rage in the story "Extenuating Circumstances." Warpula will be performing stories from the book "Grimm's Tales for the Young and Old."
Cromwell-Wright entered 17 speakers at Sections and qualified nine to the finals. Justin Britton earned sixth place in Discussion, Vanessa Dickey earned fifth place in Prose, and Jake Krezowski/Taylor Jatkola earned sixth place in Duo. Extemporaneous speakers Rusty Lund and Spencer Lemm earned fourth and fifth place, respectively.
Brian Schilling is the head coach of the speech team along with assistant coach Jeanne Weimer.
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"We are extremely proud of our team and their hard work and dedication," said Schilling. "We believe this goes to show that on the court and on stage, Cromwell-Wright is able to produce well-rounded individuals. We have a strong speech program because of these students and support from our school and community."
The State Speech Tournament will be held Friday, April 20, at Chanhassen High School in Chanhassen. It is free and open to the public. The Cromwell-Wright speech team is planning a Community Performance Night that will be published in the school bus bulletin soon. There will also be a school performance for the students and a sendoff for the team to state. More information about the state tournament can be found on the mshsl.org website.
