Speech opener in Casper

The Hot Springs County High School’s Speech and Debate team heads to Casper on Friday to compete in the Kelly Walsh Invitational, their first outing of the season.

 The 10 student team spent most of the Christmas break meeting and practicing for the upcoming event, one of the largest meets they participate in for the year.

 Coach Cindy Glasson said she’s really looking forward to how the team will perform.

“We have four returning students this year, all seniors.” Glasson said. “That gives us six new team members that are starting out at one of the toughest meets they’ll see all season.”

 Returning to the team are Amanda Dinsmore, Aressa Goodrich, Darren Leonhardt and Kameron Olsen.

 “These four are ready to hit the ground running,” Glasson said. “Amanda will be triple entered in drama, humor and duet. Aressa is doing poetry for the first time and is polishing an original oratory, an event she’s done the last couple of years.

 “For this first meet, Darren and Kameron will be doing LD debate and extemp, but they’re both going to step a bit out of their comfort zone later in the season. Darren is working on an oratory and we’re looking for a humor piece for Kameron. You know, Kameron has been such a quiet guy I had no idea he had all these different voices and accents rolling around in his head. I think he’s going to have a blast doing something a little different.”

 Leonhardt went to Nationals last summer in Dallas as part of the World’s Debate Team from Wyoming.

 New members of the team include Aaron Goodrich who will be doing a poetry piece on the ills of society, Logan Meier is competing in humor with a physical piece complete with a ‘slipping on a banana’ pratfall, Patience Moore, who moved here from Guernsey this year, has a heartbreaking piece about the death of a mother, Eryn Robinson will be doing oratory as well as a duet with Dinsmore about a pair of Army nurses stationed in Vietnam and Rhett Richmond and Wyatt Wright have joined the team, both doing LD debate and extemp.

 “I’m really excited about this year,” Glasson said. “We have a strong base with our seniors and the new members of the team are showing a lot of talent. These kids put a lot of work into performing and our season is long, ending the last weekend in March.”