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Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
The Sidney High School Raider Speakers speech team is the 2016 Western Conference speech champion, winning four of the nine events for their first conference title since 2005.
Five Sidney High School students were named champion in their events at the 2016 Western Conference Speech Meet held at Sidney High School last weekend. Pictured are champions Austin Jacobsen, Will Castner, Jordan Cook, Jakob and Josh Austad.
The Sidney High School Raiders Speakers speech team had a strong showing over the weekend at the 2016 Western Conference Speech Meet, winning its first conference title in more than a decade.
"We got 19 of our students in the finals," said Tanya Lewis, assistant speech coach and English teacher at Sidney High School. "It's the first time that Sidney has won this speech meet since 2005."
The Raider Speakers won four of the nine events at the meet, and had three of the six finalists in four events.
Champions for Sidney were: Will Castner in informative public speaking, Jordan Cook in persuasive speaking, Austin Jacobsen in entertainment speaking, and the duet acting team of Jakob and Josh Austad.
Combined with its 15 other medalists, Sidney was able to hold a two-point edge on Gering High School in the team standings, 60 to 58.
"It's scored very similar to a track meet, where first place gets six points, second place gets five points, third gets four points and so on," Lewis said. "They take six (students) into the finals, and the score is based on their place."
In third place was Chadron with 29 points, followed by Scottsbluff with 27, Mitchell with 14 and Alliance with one point.
"We felt really good about (our results)," Lewis said. "Our kids and our coaches have worked very hard and we are very pleased."
Lewis said the speech meet is on the path to the larger District B-6 competition, and the conference win helps the team's confidence moving forward.
"Many of the competitors we saw at conference are also in our district," she said. "So we are feeling very good about how our students performed."
Lewis said the district competition will determine the students who will move on to the state meet in late March.
"The top three in each event move on to state," she said.
With a couple weeks between the conference and district meets, Lewis said the team is hard at work polishing performances.
"We are in a very tough district, so we are preparing," she said.
Also, while the conference meet allows for three individuals from each school to enter an event, the district meet allows for only two per event.
"So we'll have to cut some students," Lewis said.
The district speech contest will be held Monday, March 14, at Gering High School, with the the state competition scheduled for the following week on Wednesday, March 23, in Kearney.
2016 Western Conference speech meet results
Champions
Will Castner, informative public speaking; Austin Jacobsen, entertainment speaking; Jordan Cook, persuasive speaking; and Jakob and Josh Austad, duet acting.
Second place
Will Castner, extemporaneous speaking; and Abbie Fraas and Megan Neal, duet acting.
Third place
Davis Burch, entertainment speaking.
Fourth place
Cameron Baldwin, entertainment speaking; Mitch Verhulst, humorous prose; and Josh Austad, Davis Burch, Samee Kaus, Jonathan Stokes and Kollyn Weimer, oral interpretation of drama.
Fifth place
Bailey Bagnell, poetry; Jordan Cook, informative public speaking; Kollyn Weimer, extemporaneous speaking; and Moselle Yohn, humorous prose.
Sixth place
Jocilyn Hessler, poetry; Jack Johnson, humorous prose; Drew Reece, extemporaneous speaking; Cameron Baldwin and Mitch Verhulst, duet acting; and Destiny Backer, Abbie Fraas, Jocilyn Hessler, Brenda Maytorena and Megan Neal, oral interpretation of drama.
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