This past weekend, Karissa West was the lone representative for Lennox High School at the State Oral Interpretation Festival that was held in Aberdeen.
On Saturday afternoon, West performed her collection of three poems from the poet Sarah Kay in her program titled “Hands” with 14 other competitors from around the state. She received a near perfect score from the three judges and was awarded a superior medal for her performance.
This year the state went to a rubric based scoring model in which the contestants would be ranked 1-3 in five categories. A rank of 1 in a category is a sign of a superior performance, a 2 represents an excellent performance and a 3 stands for good. With three judges in the event, a perfect score would be a score of 15. West received a 17, one of the top scores in the entire competition.
“I am very proud of Karissa for all the work she has put in this year,” stated her coach, Mike Larson. “She took a challenging piece and worked really hard to bring out the meaning and emotion of the poems.”
While West was the only one to qualify this year in oral interp, many other students had a strong season. Lennox also had two alternates to state this year, Santana Kitson in storytelling and Anna Calhoon in dramatic interpretation. The two students were able to attend and watch and learn from many different performances in the state.
During the year Max Bultena in non-original oratory and the group of Marcus Metivier, Joseph Meyer, Nathan Waltjer, Max Bultena, and Santana Kitson in reader’s theater also placed in several tournaments this season.
The oral interp team will be performing their events on Thursday, December 7, in the high school/junior high library starting at 6:30 PM for the public. This event is free to anyone that would like to attend.