It’s been a strong week for the Chandler High School speech and drama department.
On Saturday, students competed at a speech and debate competition at Mount St. Mary’s Catholic High School, taking home second place overall in 4A.
Speech and drama teacher Inda Jo Conway said she took six students and that none of them had been to a speech competition before. They medaled in five out of six events, which qualifies them for the regional competition in February.
These students are: John John Casey winning first in 4A Informative Speech, Hartley Burchardt winning second in 4A Informative Speech, Weston Miller winning first in 4A Monologues, Bethany Descher and Julia Gardner winning first in 4A Dramatic Duet and Bethany Descher winning second in Dramatic Interpretation.
“The students who attended this weekend are excited to compete again now that they know what to expect and to encourage others to do so,” Conway said.
She said there is a speech competition nearly every weekend from now until the end of February. They intend to attend at least five more.
Additionally, the troupe competed at the 4A OSSAA State One-Acts at East Central University on Nov. 4. Conway said that they are over the moon about their placement at State. Chandler placed fourth overall out of nine schools and one student -- Bethany Descher -- made All-Star Cast.
“We, as a department, chose to focus on International Thespian Festival oneact standards and not OSSAA. Which meant using a minimalistic unit set -- not the grand sets used by our OSSAA competitors -- knowing this would automatically put us at a disadvantage,” she said, adding that they beat out the school that had placed above them in regionals. “We took that as a huge win.”