By Sydney Bartels
The Silver Lake Speech team is wrapping up their season with the last couple of meets. On February 19, the team headed to Sutton for a long day of all things speech. The meet was a big meet that included several big teams. Unfortunately, luck was not on the Mustangs’ side and no one from Silver Lake placed in the top placings. Lifting everyone’s spirits was the annual Twin Valley Conference Speech Meet, which was hosted at Franklin this year. Silver Lake had ten individuals/teams entered into the competition. Luck turned around for the Mustangs and almost everyone placed in the top six. Junior Marissa Erickson competed in informative and earned 5th place, while freshman Jeremy Sharp performed in serious and received 6th place. Senior Michael Trausch entered into serious and freshmen Addison Schmidt and Katy Soucek performed in the duet category. Also competing in the duet category, freshmen Katelyn and Emma Strampher performed their speech by Sean Abley, which earned them 6th place. K. Strampher said it felt really rewarding to do so well at all of the speech meets considering she is only a freshman. “I think that our performance at the TVC meet was probably our best performance yet.” Junior Samantha Bonifas was entered in the persuasive category and received 4th place. Competing in the humorous category, Silver Lake had two competitors: sophomores Morgan Dinkler and Savanna Junek. Dinkler received 5th place and Junek earned 2nd place. In the Oral Interpretation of Drama (OID) section of the competition, Silver Lake again had two teams entered. Sophomores Sydney Bartels and Madison Karr teamed up with juniors Josi Sharp and Reghan Miller to perform their speech How To Succeed In High School Without Really Trying, while sophomores Lana Swanson, Taylor Hanson, and Savanna Junek along with Samantha Bonifas performed Keeping Score. Swanson, Hanson, Junek, and Bonifas received 5th place, while Bartels, Karr, Sharp, and Miller brought home a 1st place award. Miller commented on her team’s accomplishment, “I am very proud of my team for overcoming several obstacles to end up where we did. All of us were sick the days before the meet and then we got to the meet and learned that another team was going to give the same speech as us. It was nervewracking, but I am extremely happy with the outcome.” Overall, it was a very successful day for the Silver Lake Speech team. They will be competing in their district speech competition in Polk, NE on March 3. Congratulations to everyone on a great day at TVC and good luck at Districts!