Speech team sends 24 to State Individuals

After Districts on Saturday, March 1, 24 CFHS speech participants took home I’s and around nine took home II’s. Those who took home a I qualified for State and will be travelling to Starmont High School on March 15 to attempts to receive another I for All-State.

Individual speech is exactly how it sounds; one person performs a piece of writing, poetry, story, monologue or something from another category individually before a group of judges. For some, they must memorize their lines and even act out a little bit.

Two CFHS students who participated in Individuals, sophomore Carolina Villavicencio and junior Emma Redington, have been on speech team since their freshman years. Junior Valentine Komen, however, joined this year and is among the 24, including Redington, who will head off to State.

Villavicencio decided that after she had been in the group part of speech team she’d try out individually. “It made me want to see my potential just by myself and how far I could go.” She didn’t make it to State this year but did, however, make it her freshman year. She has taken this year’s setback in stride: “You should give your all and know if you did a good or a bad job and know you’re still part of a team.”

This year, Redington’s category was poetry, and she said, “What makes me nervous is the actual performance because I want to give it my all.”

The feeling is mutual for many others as well. Komen said, “I’m nervous to forget my lines because we have to memorize for storytelling.”

With State right around the corner Komen and Redington are practicing hard to ensure they give it their all at State. “I want to give pretty much the same performance as districts and my hopes are to get all ones,” Komen said.

Redington has expectations not only for her, but for the rest of her team as well. “My expectations for State are higher, since we have a lot of great actors performing. I expect a lot of us to get Division I’’s since there is so much talent,” Redington said.