Valley Journal
Valley Journal

This Week’s e-Edition

Current Events

Latest Headlines

What's New?

Send us your news items.

NOTE: All submissions are subject to our Submission Guidelines.

Announcement Forms

Use these forms to send us announcements.

Birth Announcement
Obituary

Ronan speech, drama rises to 3rd in state

Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local. You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.



Subscribe now to stay in the know!

Already a subscriber? Login now

LAUREL — In their final meet of the season, Ronan High School speech and drama students turned in some winning performances, claiming third place in the state tournament held in Laurel over the weekend. The entire team made the semifinals, and students won five medals to push the team into the top three.

“We had a pretty good weekend,” coach Melissa Knabe said. “(The students) competed very well.”

Josie Benedetti won double gold, taking first in Classical Duo (“Othello”) with Robert Hocker and in Serious Duo (“The Crucible”) with Andrew Crenshaw. Ebru Calin brought home a fifth-place medal in Serious Solo (“Animal Dreams”). Elise Bold also medaled in fifth place in Pantomime (“Hole in Ten”).

Although the rest of the team finished out of the medals, their performances earned points to help the team into third place, Knabe said. Freshmen Thomas Oschmann and Bradley Findly performed scenes from Good Will Hunting in Serious Duo, and Fictional Man in Humorous Duo. Ethen Sheumaker performed “The Unfortunate Musketeer” in Pantomime. Ebru Calin performed in Humorous Duo with Robert Hocker in “Lifeguard on Duty” from Saturday Night Live. Amber Metzger and Jonelle Lauer performed scenes from Susan Glaspell’s one-act play, “Trifles,” in Classical Duo. 

Andrew Crenshaw competed with an adaptation of John Leguizamo’s one-man show, “The Freak.” Shelby Benson competed in Humorous Interp with Dave Barry’s “She Drives for a Relationship, He’s Lost in the Transmission.” Matthew Kujala performed readings from “Mike Company at Gio Linh” in Serious Interp, and Joseph Dresen rounded out the competition with his rousing performance of Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death.”

In four years of coaching Ronan’s speech and drama team, Knabe has seen significant progress — in fact, as far as she knows, the third-place finish at state was the team’s best showing since 1997.

“Third place is definitely a move up,” she said. “I’m hopeful that we can turn this into a good strong recruiting drive.”

Knabe also credited her students’ strong performances with earning her the Northwest Division’s Class A Drama Coach of the Year title and putting her in the running to win State Class A Drama Coach of the Year.

“For me, it just means that our kids really worked hard to get recognition for our school,” she said.

If you didn’t get a chance to see students compete during the speech and drama season, there’s one last chance from 7 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 8, when the team will perform its competition pieces for Community Night at the school.

Sponsored by: