November 9, 2007

The Hood River Valley High School Speech Team has had a successful start to its new season.

At the Nov. 3 Silverton Triple Debate and Individual Events tournament, 10 competitors made the trip, bringing home four awards.

The Parliamentary Debate team of Tyler Colesar and Patrick Sadil earned second place in that event, emerging with three wins and four losses over four rounds of competition.

Sadil was further honored with second-highest speaker points for the day, finishing just one point behind the winner. In that same event, Roberto Nunez and Eliot Woodrich finished in fifth place.

In Dual Interpretation of Literature, the team of Dena Beals and Max Gorman took first place for their interpretation of “Italian American Reconciliation” by John Patrick Shanley.

“It was Dena’s first tournament,” said assistant coach Kathy Yasui, “but because Max is in his third year of competition, the duo competed in the Open Class. Judges were impressed!”

Team captain Marcus Fridley won first place in After Dinner Speaking, one of the most difficult competitive speaking events. After Dinner Speaking — known as ADS — is an original humorous speech of 6 1/2 minutes’ length, ending with a toast.

“It is difficult because you never know what will amuse your audience until you try it. It cannot be a series of jokes, or a stand-up routine, but has to have a serious undertone,” said Head Coach Regena Rafelson.

“Marcus has written a very funny speech about Computer Tech Support, those people who help the technologically challenged over the telephone.”

In early October, 20 team members traveled to the Sam Barlow Invitational.

Taylor Krummel — competing in her first-ever speech tournament — earned second place in Novice Prose Reading; Emma Fish earned third place in Radio Commentary; Dana Utroske advanced to finals in Open Prose Reading; and Marcus Fridley advanced to finals in After Dinner.