Two students became the first from Carbon County School District No. 2's speech team to compete at the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions (NIETOC), held May 9-11 at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn.
Speech students Kaylyn Wessel and Becca Treat, both Encampment High School seniors, competed using Jodi Picoult's "My Sister's Keeper" as their duo piece. Individually, Wessel competed with her drama piece entitled "January First" by Michael Schofield.
The duo did not make finals, but their points indicated they were in the top 30 out of close to nearly 80 duos. Wessel competed out of more than 100 individual drama students.
The event hosted top competitors from all over the United States, and showcased a scholarship for each first place title holder in each event. Around 400 top students from 115 schools participated in the fifth NIETOC tournament, and the organization is run by a group of coaches from across the United States.
Treat and Wessel said they felt honored to be the first students from CCSD#2's speech team at the NIETOC tournament. Treat said she was surprised they did so well out of participants from much larger high schools.
"It's amazing given the fact that a lot of the teams we were competing against were from huge high schools that actually have drama or speech as a class," she said. "They're required to take it and work on it every day. It's pretty impressive for us, being from a small school and not having the teachers or coaches that they have, to do as well as we did. This was good preparation for Nationals in June."
Wessel said it was exciting to compete against many professional speech students from across the U.S.
"There wasn't one person around where you say 'I for sure got them beat,'" she said. "Everybody is so good, so you go into a round and just have to do your best. It's a little bit intimidating."
Treat and Wessel will attend the National High School Speech and Debate Tournament in Overland Park, Kan. June 15-20, where they will once again perform "My Sister's Keeper."
Local audiences were also treated to My Sister's Keeper at the Carbon County School District No. 2 Speech Team's "Speech Night". Treat's and Wessel's May 18 performance of the duet took place at the Platte Valley Community Center.
Other performers at Speech Night included Nick Smith, a case for Lincoln-Douglas Debate; Nina Ford, a case for Lincoln-Douglas Debate, and case for a bill on non-medical vaccine exemptions; Becca Hayward, "Cosmetology Class" by Gerald Verbushka; Maya Zeiger, "Fly Away Home" by Eva Bunting; Lydia Smith, "The Valedictorian Speech" by Funny Business Publishing Company; Aleck Freeman, "I Might be Edgar Allen Poe" by Dawson Nichols; and Jacob Dickinson, a self-written oratory.
After the Speech Night performances, Treat, Wessel and fellow senior speech team member Aleck Freeman, of Hanna/Elk Mountain/Medicine Bow High School, were presented onstage with a "Senior Tribute" alongside their parents.
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