Published: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 1:00 AM CST

Students from across South Dakota are set to converge on Yankton for the 2012 South Dakota High School Activities Association (SDHSAA) State’s Oral Interpretation Festival, which will take place at Yankton High School Friday and Saturday.

Individual awards will be given out to students or groups at the end of each session. Team excellence awards will be presented following the conclusion of the final session. All three classes in the state will be competing here.

“Oral interpretation basically is public speaking,” said YHS oral interp. co-coach Teri Mandel. “There are different categories of types of speech at the festival this weekend.”

This is Mandel’s first year coaching the YHS team, made up of about 30 students.

“I was a competitive speaker in high school, which made me want to coach the team here,” she said. “Public speaking is a skill that is good to practice. It allows you to think on your feet and feel comfortable speaking to a crowd. When I was a competitive speaker, I didn’t know I wanted to be a teacher, but I definitely think the public speaking helped.”

The competitive categories include duet interpretation, non-original oratory, interpretation of serious prose, humorous reading, poetry reading, interpretation of serious plays and readers theater.

Leo Kallis, who had served as YHS’s oral interp. coach in the past and is the co-coach with Mandel this year, said Yankton hosts not only the state festival every seven years but also the state debate contest every seven years. This school year, YHS is hosting both — something that only occurs once every 42 years.

“It’s a big deal to host a state event, no matter what it is,” he said.

Garrett Adam, a member of the YHS oral interpretation team, said he enjoys the art of public speaking.

“I like being able to express myself through the piece and getting to read a piece of paper in a different way,” he said. “You just get the words, you can express the piece whichever way you want.”

Adam added he not only enjoys going to different places around the state but also the competitive factor that performing provides.

“I like doing well and competing for my school and hometown,” he said. “YHS has done pretty well in duet interpretation and readers theater in the past.”

Adam said the school has also fared well in extemporaneous speaking, but that area is judged at the state debate contest held in March.

Mandel thinks her team can perform well this weekend.

“We started practicing in September, and since then students have practiced their pieces every day after school,” she said. “We’ve attended several contests this year, including in Aberdeen, Mitchell and Sioux Falls, and have done well at those contests.”

Kallis said since this is a festival, each student performs his or her piece one time, and after a student performs, judges vote them as superior or not superior.

“The judges look for the quality of the literature, how well the student captures the piece, vocal inflections and body language when they judge each selection,” he said. “Students will either pass or fail based on the judges’ votes. The biggest rule for when students pick out a piece is it must be widely available — a hard copy must be in place so judges can double-check students after they perform.”

Mandel said each category of speaking is a little different, but there is a 10-minute time limit, with a 30-second grace period, in each category

“Students can work from a script, but they should have it memorized for the most part,” she said. “It should be to a point where it is known well enough that they can naturally gesture and be able to interpret and react with the script.”

Mandel said her team is anxious for the festival to start.

“Our students have put a lot of time and effort into preparing for this,” Mandel said. “It is nice to have the season come to a close and students being able to see the fruits of their efforts at the festival this weekend.”

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