LCS students gear up for large group speech contest

Le Mars Community High School freshmen Skyler Sailer (left), Trey Rasmussen (hidden), Rachel Parry and Nate Irwin rehearse a group improv on the topic "Trapped in the Basement," Thursday in preparation for the large group speech competition Saturday in Le Mars. For group improv, students draw a topic, and have two minutes to prepare a skit on that situation. [Click to enlarge]

Le Mars Community High School is one of 16 schools across Iowa serving as a district site for the Iowa High School Speech Association Large Group Speech Tournament Saturday, Jan. 24.

Le Mars Community High School students have been preparing for this tournament since mid-November, according to coach Erin Ohrlund.

Area high school students will compete in one of 10 different categories: One-Act Play, Readers Theatre, Choral Reading, Ensemble Acting, Musical Theatre, Group Improv, Group and Solo Mime, Television Newscasting and Radio Broadcasting.

Competitors receiving a division "I" rating in a particular area earn the right to appear at the state site on Feb. 7.

Ohrlund and assistant coach Jill Martin began the large group speech season by meeting with more than 80 LCS students.

"When we met in November, students signed up for the areas that interested them most," Ohrlund said. "Since a student can only be in two events, we tried to match everyone with at least one of their choices." Putting groups together and finding appropriate pieces for them to perform takes a lot of organization, according to Ohrlund.

This year, Ohrlund started a junior varsity division, as she had such a number of freshmen interested. They will compete against other junior varsity teams in the contest.

The largest number of people are taking part in the one-act play category.

"Our varsity one-act play has 25 students in it," Ohrlund said.

Since that first November meeting, Ohrlund and Martin, along with teacher Sherry Permeswaran who volunteered to coach the mime entrants, have meet twice a week with students in their particular areas.

Ohrlund says she has gathered a large number of scripts through the years for the students to look through. The coaches usually choose the material for the one act play and Reader's Theater.

This year's varsity choral reading group put their own material together according to Orhlund.

"We encourage them to look for their own material, listen to other groups and then choose their material," she said.

"We spend about a half hour with the small groups, and one to 1 1/2 hours with the larger groups each week," Ohrlund said.

The winter weather has played havoc with scheduled practices, so the past two weeks have been crunch time for both coaches and students.

"It is very time consuming," said Ohrlund. This week, the coaches and students started their days at 7 a.m., working after school until 10 p.m.

"Coaching speech is so much fun. They're such great kids," said Ohrlund. "They are so energetic, so ready to go. It's just so much fun to work with them."

She adds it also gives her an opportunity to get to know her students in a new way.

'Even the quiet ones, it's such a delight to see more facets of their personality come through in their work," Ohrlund said.

"We get a wide spectrum of kids out for speech. They make lasting friendships too," she said.

"It's a learning experience, too," Ohrlund said. "The Iowa High School Speech Association promotes this as a love of public speaking for students."

Permeswaren serves as contest manager for the Le Mars site. She has been busy booking judges and making sure all is ready for a full day of competition on Saturday.

Schools of all sizes will take part in Saturday's competition.

"This is not judged by classes, but rather by performance only. Each school has a number so students are identified by school number rather than school name," Ohrlund said. "It puts everyone on an even field."

Each performance is timed, with those categories with larger groups taking more time.

As she watched a group improv rehearse, Ohrlund explained the timing process.

"Each group knows they must stop when the maximum time is reached, otherwise they are disqualified," Ohrlund said. The performance can be less than the maximum time.

Since one-act plays take more time, three of those are set to perform Friday evening. They are the two LCS groups and a group from Remsen St. Mary's. Those performances will start at 4 p.m. in the middle school auditorium.

Performances begin at 8 a.m. Saturday and should be concluded by 5 p.m.

"Things do tend to run ahead of schedule," Ohrlund added.

The performances are open to the public, and a $3 suggestion donation to attend.

Groups earning a division "I" rating on Saturday have the opportunity to go on to state competition on Feb. 7. From there, groups recommended by judges advance to All-State Speech.

Ohrlund has taken several groups to the All-State level.

"It's a point of pride that LCS has been successful in the past," Ohrlund said, as she explained LCS is listed in the program as a Sweepstakes winner for several years.

Craig Ihnen, now executive director of the Iowa High School Speech Association and a former speech coach at LCS, set some high standards, according to Ohrlund.

It's a goal LCS students strive for.

"Craig calls these events festivals, an opportunity for students to perform and have fun," Ohrlund said.

More than 357 schools from across the state of Iowa will be participating at one of 16 sites, with some 26,000 Iowa high school students involved in Saturday's district contest.