Tulip City High School students earned the highest possible honor in Iowa High School Speech. The following large group speech teams from Pella and Pella Christian received All-State Nominations from the Iowa High School Speech Association:

Pella:
Readers’ Theatre – Appropriate Behavior (Non-Performing)
Improv – Mitchell (Non-Performing)
Musical Theatre – Nunsense (Non-Performing)
Musical Theatre – Spongebob Squarepants The Musical (Non-Performing)

Pella Christian:
Choral Reading – And (Performing)
Readers’ Theatre – And Others (Performing)
One-Act Play – Rags (Non-Performing)

Pella Christian student actors Abigail Gosselink and Emily Van Beek say they were honored to earn All-State Recognition and are excited for the chance to perform this weekend.

“This was like a dream for me, honestly, because this is my fourth year of choral reading and so from my very first year, I thought it would be really cool to perform because you perform at Stephen’s Auditorium, which is like a giant auditorium at Iowa State with 3,000 seats, so when I found out I was so excited,” Gosselink says.

“I would be lying if I said I didn’t cry,” Van Beek says. “When I found out, after all the excitement wore off, there were just tears everywhere and just finally, all of that hard work–the research outside of practice to make sure I was portraying the characters accurately, to just all the early mornings and late nights just finally pulled it together and was worth it.”

The 2020 Iowa High School All-State Speech Large Group Festival will be held at Iowa State University on Saturday, February 22nd, where those who received the “performing” distinction will showcase their acts. Hear from the All-State Speech students at Pella Christian High School on today’s Let’s Talk Pella, and click here to listen to the Pella High students.