Some of Washington’s individual speech students.(L-R) Keegan Colby, Hannah Rees, Molly Klinzman, and Jenna Messer.

Though no individual All-State nominations were received by the Washington High School speech students, they were grateful to get to participate in the contests this year after last year’s were cancelled because of COVID-19.

Six students performed at a state contest that was hosted at Winfield-Mt. Union High School on March 13th for them and Keokuk High School. All of them received Division I ratings: Quinn Wubbena and Hannah Rees for solo musical theatre, Molly Klinzman for literary program and storytelling, Keegan Colby for review and acting, Brynn Beenblossom for prose, and Jenna Messer for public address. While there were limited spectators at the contest and it was scheduled in a way that prevented them for getting to view other events, the students were glad to perform for judges in person, and Senior Rees says she’s proud to see the growth of the program since her freshman year, “I think it’s really cool to have seen this program grow and especially our main coach for speech is especially passionate about growing the speech program and I’m super excited to see where it goes because they’re working on outreach and getting more people recruited for it and helping the underclassmen get excited for it too and so I’m really hoping that’ll bring the numbers up too. Because it is a really good program, it brings friends but then it’s also like you’re competing with pieces you love and you’re learning more about how to speak in front of important people.”

Rees also advanced to the state large group contest this past January in musical theatre with Wubbena, Kevin Flannery, and Bailey Rees. The Iowa High School Speech Association contest season had several changes this year due to COVID-19, including a cancellation of the All-State Festival events, and letting schools choose to hire judges to evaluate their performances in their own school building or perform virtually.