Luverne students earned the Section 3A speech championship trophy Saturday, the first team title for coach Gavin Folkestad in his 10 years of advising the speech team with Caroline Thorson.
Due to pandemic restrictions, Luverne earned the team title while competing alone at their own school.
“While it would have been nice for students to walk up to the stage to receive their awards and be recognized by all the competitors and coaches, they made up for it by loudly cheering for and celebrating with the finalists when their names were called,” Folkestad said. “At normal awards ceremonies, the kids have to show more restraint when cheering for their teammates.”
Folkestad said the announcement of the team title was overwhelming.
“Everyone went wild with excitement when they announced that Luverne was the section champion,” he said.
Folkestad began coaching the local team in 2011 and Thorson joined him six years ago.
“This is the first section championship in both mine and Gavin’s tenure,” she said. “Also, we believe this is the most students from Luverne that have qualified for state at one time.”
Seventeen Luverne students competed in Saturday’s section tournament with 13 entering the final round and adding to the team’s winning score.
Luverne joined 14 other schools competing with an overall total of 124 students in the section tournament. Students competed in three rounds with the top six students in each of the 13 speech categories competing in a final round. The top three finishers in each category move on to the state tournament.
The six LHS state tournament qualifiers — Chance Tunnissen, Parker Carbonneau, Zander Carbonneau, Luke Thorson, Josie Golla and Xavier Carbonneau — will compete at home Saturday.
Results from the sectional competition by category include:
•Discussion: Burke Johnson, fourth.
•Dynamic Duo: Brianna Kinsinger and Bethany Behr, fourth.
•Extemporaneous reading: Destiny Matthiesen, sixth.
•Extemporaneous speaking: Chance Tunnissen, first; Parker Carbonneau, second; Zander Carbonneau, third.
•Great speeches: Rylee Anderson, fourth.
•Humorous: Luke Thorson, third.
•Serious poetry: Mia Wenzel, fifth.
•Serious prose: Josie Golla, third.
•Storytelling: Xavier Carbonneau, second; Roselynn Hartshorn, fifth.