By Sydney Bartels
With the 2022-23 speech season coming to an end, the Silver Lake speech team hosted their annual speech night on Monday, March 6. This event is open to parents, friends, and the community to watch the speech members present their speeches that they have worked hard on all season. Each member was given the opportunity to practice one last time in front of a live audience before his/her district performance. Sophomore Katelyn Strampher says, “I think speech night helped me prepare for districts because I could perfect anything that went wrong, and it gave me a boost to know that I can perform in front of people I know.” Moving ahead to March 8, the speech team traveled to Franklin for their district competition. Each category was full of tough competitors, but Silver Lake stayed strong and brought home several medals. Senior Samantha Bonifas competed in Persuasive Speaking and placed 2nd, earning her a spot to compete at the State Speech Competition. Junior Savanna Junek and sophomore Emma Strampher competed in Humorous Speaking placing 3rd and 4th respectively. Junek’s 3rd place finish earned her a spot at the state competition as well. Sophomores Sophie and Milla Butler, along with junior Taylor Hanson and Junek competed in Oral Interpretation of Drama (OID) and placed 4th. Juniors Sydney Bartels and Morgan Dinkler competed in Duet Acting, wrapping up the day with a 3rd place finish. This qualified them for the state competition along with Bonifas and Junek. Bartels, Bonifas, Dinkler, and Junek will travel to Kearney High School on Friday, March 17, to compete in the State Speech Competition. Junek commented that it has been several years since Silver Lake has had speech competitors make it to state. “I am so proud of how hard everyone on the team has worked this year to make it this far.” Congratulations to everyone who competed at districts and good luck to those competing at state!