Drakes are Section 7A champions
The Blackduck Drakes Speech team is the Section 7A Championship team for the fifth year in a row!
The 49 members of the speech team traveled to Hibbing March 30 to face the 18 teams of Section 7A for the right to represent the section at the state tournament in two weeks! Nineteen speakers earned a spot in the difficult final round and 11 of those will be representing the section and Blackduck High School at the MSHSL tournament in Chanhassen April 20.
Blackduck's individual gold-medal tournament champions were Dimitrius Haro in Discussion, Matthew Jedlicka in Drama, and Tyler Dobmeier in Great Speeches.
In second place and also advancing to state are Maddie Stomberg in Creative Expression, Morgan Jung in Great Speeches, Maddy Liapis in Informative Speaking, Maile Olson in Original Oratory, Katie O Rourke in Prose and Kristie Slindee in Storytelling.
Earning third place medals and advancing to state are Derek Gustafson in Extemp Reading, and Shalynne Bogucki in Poetry. Other medalists and finalists included: Madison Stelton in Creative Expression, Cindy Veazey in Drama, Julia Bogucki in Drama, Lynn Masino in Informative Speaking, Brittany Martin in Original Oratory, Nolan Vorderbruggen in Poetry, Kari Sydow in Prose and Michaela Holmgren in Storytelling.
The coaches would like to thank the entire team for turning a rebuilding year into a winning year once again! Now we turn our sights toward achieving success at the state tournament.
Blackduck has one returning state medalist -- Maile Olson --who placed fifth last year in Original Oratory. Stomberg, Haro, Liapis, Gustafson, Bogucki and Slindee are making their first appearance at state, while it is the second trip for Jedlicka, Jung, Olson and O'Rourke and the third for Dobmeier.
The entire community is invited to enjoy the many and varied talents of the state team at the "State Speaker Showcase" April 11 beginning at 6:30 p.m. in the BHS Choir room.
