LOCAL STUDENTS BRING HOME FOUR SUPERIORS FROM STATE FESTIVAL

Freeman High School sophomore Thor Aanenson won two superiors, Menno senior Alexis Hogeland earned top honors, and the Marion High School Reader’s Theatre team claimed gold, as well, at the 114th South Dakota High School Activities Association State Oral Interpretation Festival at Harrisburg High School Friday and Saturday, Dec. 1 and 2.

• Aanenson won a superior in Humorous Reading with “Warning Signs” — a piece centered around a 25-year-old who digs up a letter that his 8-year-old self wrote to him in a not-so-intelligent way — and in Non-Original Oratory with “Liespotting,” which is a cutting of a TedTalk focused on how to recognized and deal with untruths all around. Aanenson won a superior in Non-Original Oratory as a freshman, as well.
• Hogeland repeated as a superior winner in Storytelling with her piece, “The Story of an Hour,” which follows the emotions of a woman who learns of her husband’s death — only to discover that he is alive after all — and the emotions that surround that.
• And the Marion Reader’s Theatre team of Alexa Gortmaker, Domani Butler, Kolter Schmidt, Kaylee Hernandez, Avery Thomas and Harli Ross won for “Jack and the Beanstalk and the French Fries” — a humorous interpretation of both Jack and the Giant complaining about their ongoing diet of just beans, which concludes with their decision to plant a potato crop instead.

Also competing at this year’s state festival were:

• The Reader’s Theatre team from Freeman Academy (Jax Kaufman, Alea Miller, Arianna Miller and Armando Miller) and the Reader’s Theater team from Menno (Lauren Schoenfish, Haylee Hall and Ervin Schrock), and Marion’s Alexa Gortmaker in Storytelling;
• Menno’s Maggie Miller and Kaelie Derby in Duet Interpretation;
• Freeman Academy’s Jessica Paschal in Serious Reading;
• Marion’s Harli Ross in Non-Original Oratory.