On Friday, March 4, 2022, the Class B-6 Speech Districts took place in Sidney, NE with eight teams competing. These teams included: Alliance, Chadron, Cozad, Gering, Gothenburg, McCook, Ogallala and Sidney. The Alliance speech team headed to Sidney at 7:00 a.m. with hopes of qualifying for the state competition. 

Alliance had nine members competing in eight different events. In the Extemporaneous event, senior Shelbee Burke and sophomore Kalli Bridge were competing, sophomore Ann Ryan and freshman Emily McCune participated in Persuasive Speaking. In Entertainment Speaking senior Julia Wilson and Bridge competed. Senior McKenna Ruffing participated in Oral Interpretation of Humorous Prose. Burke and Ruffing competed in the Oral Interpretation of Serious Prose, junior Annaka Digmann and senior Morgan Moomey participated in poetry and senior Chloe Mann and McCune competed in Informative Speaking. Competing in the Duet Acting event was Mann and Wilson, as well as Digmann and Moomey.

In order to qualify for state speech, participants must place in the top six in the preliminary rounds and go on to finals, where they must place in the top three out of the event. There were twelve participants in each event. The Alliance events that made it to finals were Mann and Wilson in Duet Acting, Bridge in Entertainment and Ruffing in Serious Prose.  The competition was extremely tough though, and no one from Alliance ended up in the top three.

Ruffing and Bridge both placed 6th in their respective events while Mann and Wilson ended up 5th. The team tied for fourth overall at the Class B-6 District Speech competition.

Although Districts did not turn out the way everyone hoped, it was still a successful season for Alliance. Head coach Christina Kloch remarked, “We did very well this year for the season. We came home with three plaques this year and we had people place every meet.” She also noted, “We had a pretty solid team that was dedicated to practicing and working hard on their events.” Along with the fourth place finish at districts and the three plaques won at meets in Gordon-Rushville, Chadron and Gering, Alliance also tied for third at Western Conference.

The Alliance Speech team had an extremely successful year with one of the biggest teams they have had in years. The Spud would like to congratulate them on an exceptional season, and are excited to see what they do next year.