Junior Sofia Ahari qualified for All-State Speech following the Individual State Speech competition last week. The Riverhawk speech team participated in a variety of events and had eight speakers receive the highest ratings available from a panel of three judges.
Speakers participating in events including Radio News Announcing, Solo Musical Theater, Storytelling, Improvisation, Poetry, and Acting were evaluated by a panel of three judges and given a score from one to four, with one being the highest score and four being a disqualification. Only students who receive a one at the district level competition proceed to state.
“We had 15 out of 25 performances get a one rating,” said Heather Jo Bailey, one of the speech team’s coaches. “Of those 8 out of 15 were all three judges giving one ratings.”
Students who received a score of one from all three judges were Sofia Ahari ‘26 (Prose, Public Address), Acacia Allen ‘27 (Radio News Announcing), Madison Heard ‘27 (Radio News Announcing), Riley Kittleson ‘26 (Solo Musical Theater), Merin Teeter ‘27 (Solo Musical Theater), Kai Tietz ‘27 (Poetry), and Norah Truex ‘27 (Solo Musical Theatre).
In order to be nominated for All State, a speaker must receive straight ones and an outstanding nomination from at least two of three judges. The number of nominations available from the four competition sites is limited. “Going to All-State is a great honor,” Bailey commented, adding, “A performer can get all 1 ratings from all three judges and yet still not go to All-State.”
All State nominations were released to the teams the Monday following the competition.
“I was super excited when I found out [I was accepted],” said Ahari. “I love talking and performing, and I really loved my Public Address this year, so this was a very exciting and important moment for me.”
According to Rebecca Rother, another of the speech coaches, Public Address is an event in which speakers perform a memorized speech that was originally given by someone else at a public event.
Ahari performed a speech titled “You Are Not Special,” which was originally a commencement speech given by English teacher David McCullough Jr. The speech focuses on the over-entitlement of modern youth and urges graduates to pursue “authentic” success. She describes her speech as “lighthearted” but “poignant.”
“Finding a unique speech that I find personally significant and one that I believe will impact the judges is quite difficult,” she said, adding, “I love being able to discover different speeches and perform them in a way that is unique to myself, but still indicative of the author’s message.”
According to Rother, speech team members begin preparing for individual speech competitions in early February, and Ahari is no exception.
She begins by writing an introduction to describe the origin and purpose of her chosen speech. “From then on,” said Ahari, “I spend most of my time memorizing the speech and incorporating gestures, vocal inflections, and facial expressions into my performance.” This year, she said, she also watched a lot of videos of similar performances to better prepare.
Riverhawk Speech isn’t stopping there. Rother looks to continue the team’s success next year, saying “Most of our team consists of sophomores and the future looks bright for MC Speech!”
