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Culver
Academies team captures
repeat state championship
By Sarah Middaugh
Staff Writer
INDIANAPOLIS - The Culver Academies speech team
recaptured its state title at Warren Central High School.
The team won the Class A Indiana High School Forensic Association (IHSFA)
State Speech Championship Saturday.
“Being state runner up in 2001 gave us the incentive to work hard to
see if we could actually win a championship, so it was very rewarding to
not only win it last year, but to repeat this year,” said head coach
Mitch Barnes.
“The team has been around for 10 years and has steadily gotten better.
We started out with five kids on the team in 1996 and we have 41 kids on
the team this year.”
Sophomores Matt Edwards and Jon Morris finished second in the Memorized
Duo category.
“They're very strong performers and very
talented as well,” Barnes said. “Jon also placed fourth in the state
in Poetry Interpretation, so to be a sophomore and place highly in two
events at the state tournament shows a lot of talent and a lot of hard
work.”
Senior Lawrence Beasley, one of the team's co-captains this year,
finished sixth in Poetry Interpretation and Junior Marianne Dabir took
seventh place in Prose Interpretation.
“Twenty [students] qualified for state, but only 13 competed at the
tournament,” Barnes said. “Out of the 13 who competed, eight broke
to the semi-final round. Then out of that eight, four broke to the
finals.”
Barnes noted that the team won four different tournaments this season.
The entire team set some excellent milestones this year, he said.
“We won four of the nine tournaments we competed in and that's the
largest number of tournaments that we've won outright. We've had so many
kids on the team this year,” he said, “and many of them were
doubling in two different events for us. That really pushed the
participation high.”
The team's success has brought a level of
prestige to the campus where it's not all about the sports, Barnes said.
“Plymouth and Culver are the only two programs in the Marshall County
area, and Plymouth has certainly established itself as one of the best
speech programs, not only in the state but on the national level,” he
said.
“We've been able to carve out a nice level of success for ourselves as
a small school. We have built a team that is not only a player in
northern Indiana, but we can do some considerable damage at the state
level as well.”
The Culver Academies speech coaches include Mitch Barnes, Jacquie Erwin,
Angie Fulton, Jeryl Hayes, Jan Peyser, Brad Trevathan and Johnny Warren. |
