OID Story
By Amanda O’Malley 

Making friends, finding $20 bills, and playing “Name That Tune” made great memories for the speech team this year.  But the best memory made was placing second at the state meet in OID.

Oral Interpretation of Drama (OID) competitions have many rules.  It is a group performance, and there must be 3-5 people in the group.  OIDs must be no longer than 15 minutes, and all performers must also use a script.  What makes this competition interesting is the students cannot touch or make eye contact with each other while acting out their performance.

Seniors Jarrod Wagner, Justin Wagner and Cheyenne Nelson along with junior Jordan Zauha and sophomore Thomas Pascarelli created the OID team this year.  Their performance was about two writers attempting to write the worst play ever because that’s what they think sells the best. Justin Wagner and Zauha played the two bad writers.

“Jordan was Banyon, a bad writer, and I was Amol, who was great at writing bad things,” Justin Wagner said.

Nelson, Pascarelli and Jarrod Wagner were three actors portraying the scenes that Justin Wagner and Zauha were writing.

“Ours was the same as another school,” Jarrod Wagner said.  “We saw them twice and beat them both times.”

The state competition consists of two preliminary rounds, judged by one person, and one final round, judged by three.  Yutan’s OID was ranked third in the first round and second in the second round.  In finals they were ranked 1, 3, and 5 to place second overall.

“Those were three of their best performances of the season,” speech team coach Ginger Eikmeier said.

The seniors said the other competitions, like David City, Ashland, West Point and ECNC, prepared them for the state meet.

“The David City meet helped us especially,” Justin Wagner said.

Nelson added, “That competition was bigger than state, and the state champs were there.” 

The seniors were also glad to end their high school speech careers with runner-up at state.  They said even though they got second, it felt like they won.

“Finals were the best we ever competed,” Nelson said.  “It was the perfect ending.”

“It felt great,” the Wagners said.  “It was amazing.”

Eikmeier said it was very exciting to get second, but she kind of guessed it.  She also said the group put a lot of effort into their events.  They practiced plenty of times and even started practicing in September.

“They are all really talented actors and speakers,” Eikmeier said.  “We will be losing some very enthusiastic members.”

While at the state tournament, several memories were made.  The actors said they got pretty lucky.

“I found a $20 bill in front of the concession stand, and we ended up getting second in the second round,” Nelson said.

Justin Wagner added, “Later, I found a $20 bill at the gas station with Josh and Thomas, and we got second overall.”

They also didn’t know that the meet organizers did not supply a table and chair for the competition.

“We had to go to Wal-Mart at nine o’clock at night,” Justin Wagner said.

Jarrod Wagner said they had a lot of good times: Jordan chasing him in the hallway and playing “Name That Tune” with the CD Mrs. Eikmeier made for the road trip to Kearney.

th the CD Mrs. Eikmeier made for the road trip to Kearney.

Speech Preview
By Kaylea Kult

With all of the winter sports beginning their practices and getting prepared for their seasons, it is easy to forget that a different kind of team, the speech team, is already hard at work.

The speech team members have their first meet on Jan. 17.  They practice weekly for 15-45 minutes depending on the event they are working on.  Coach Ginger Eikmeier said the members have to put in a lot of individual work and practice on their own.  She has some high expectations for how the season will go.

“I want to continue to build on the previous seasons,” she said. 

Last year, the team placed second at conference, after winning it the year before.  Eikmeier is hoping to earn the title back this year.  Senior Jarrod Wagner said that the team stands a chance of doing well.

“Having a bigger team can fill more spots so we can do better in the standings,” Wagner said. 

He said he definitely likes having an increase in the team this season.  The team went from having 13 members last year to 19 this year.  Eikmeier said that she thinks the reason six more people joined the team is because of the freshmen.

“There usually aren’t freshmen on the team because they don’t have speech class until their sophomore year,” she said.  Eikmeier also said she thinks she talked a couple other students into it based on their efforts in her speech class.

Eikmeier said that Wagner, along with his brother Justin, and Cheyenne Nelson are the biggest leaders on the team and they all made it to state last year.  Nelson went to state competing in persuasive and the Wagners duet acting.  Eikmeier says she expects a lot out of those three.

Jarrod admits that he has been looking forward to speech since the school year started.

He said he hopes to make a return to state for a consecutive year.

“I’m just really excited to get underway,” he said.

The speech team will have a showcase for everyone to come and watch the members perform, but the date is to be announced.  They will compete in five or six regular-season competitions as well as conference and district and hopefully state.