Andrew Sorsen Is Class B State Champion in Extemporaneous Speaking
Sarah Garbers Medals in Entertaining Speaking at State Speech
Seward High Senior, Andrew Sorsen of Seward captured the Championship medal at the recent NSAA State Speech Contest held on Thursday, March 18, 2010 at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Teammate and fellow SHS Senior, Sarah Garbers also qualified for finals and won the 6th place medal in Entertaining Speaking. Her topic was herself titled “I’m An Asian Sensation!”
Sorsen won four first place votes from the five judges that critiqued him throughout the day. He first drew the topic “Is the US doing enough to check China’s rapid global influence?” His second topic dealt with “South Korea and the treaty to end the Korean War” and his final topic centered around “Will Iran’s government crackdown ultimately be the government’s undoing?” He was required to write the speech, memorize it and present the seven minute speech in one hour. He completed all three speeches without a note card and was named champion extemporaneous speaker.
Sorsen also was a state qualifier in Persuasive Speaking and his topic was “The Exclusion of the Third Party is a Problem in US Politics!” SHS Senior Stephanie Rippstein qualified for the State Speech contest with a persuasive speech dealing with the positive aspects of art education and Dayna Svoboda, an SHS Junior, qualified for State Speech with a serious prose presentation “My Mother’s Touch!’ They did not break into finals.
The SHS Speech Coach is Clark Kolterman.
Seward High placed in the top ten schools, with a ninth place ranking. There were 40 Class B Schools with students qualifying for the state speech tournament. Almost 900 students are involved in the speech tournament, the second highest student activity of the NSAA each year.
Andrew Sorsen and Stephanie Rippstein were also named to the NSAA State Academic All State list and presented with certificates of honor, having the highest GPA on the SHS Speech team.
