During the 2014-2015 school year, St. Edmond Catholic School’s Speech team underwent an overhaul and added the branch of Large Group Speech.

Since that time, the school’s speech program has continually grown and developed into a stronger and more developed team. It eventually grew to the point where it evolved into a school club — the Drama Club.

This year, the Drama Club had a total of 42 members, almost all of which participated in either Large Group or Individual Event Speech.

These members included the following students: seniors Sydney Nelson, Carlee Rautanen, Zohara Assadipour, Aaron Simpson, Sidney Messerly, Nathan Montgomery and Abigail Landwehr and Ellie Wallace; juniors Jonah Hindt, Claire Fleming, Milena Naughton, Jocy Timmerman, Jed Tracy, Rene Cazares, Cameron Brown, Allison Lundberg, Alfonso Galvan Jr., Olivia Kolacia, Brandon Lennon and Josie Huss; sophomores Avery Galles, Ruihui (Rick) Xu, Jacey Ash, Cole Rautanen, Leah Johnson, Sydney Schulte, Hallie Ehn, and Rylie Steinkamp; and freshmen Emma Alstott, Mirandy Finnegan, Brady O’Brien, Elly Berry, Myas McClain, Neely Nordtrom, Emma Roe, Emillian Garcia, Valeria Cazares, Clare Conrad, Grant Webster, Aleah Anderson and Lillian Kolacia.

The group also celebrated by having its first board, including President Sydney Nelson, Vice President Carlee Rautanen, Secretary Zohara Assadipour and Historian Avery Galles. The team was coached by Melissa Hindt, Cory Naughton and Jarrod Roth.

The Large Group Speech team took eight entries to district competition and advanced two groups to the state competition: Short Film “The Project” with senior Aaron Simpson, juniors Jocelyn Timmerman and Jed Tracy, sophomores Avery Galles, and Sydney Schulte, and freshman Valeria Cazares, Lilly Kolacia, Neely Nordstrom and Aleah Anderson; and Group Mime “Here Comes the Sun” with freshmen Emma Alstott and Clare Conrad. “The Project” was able to earn a “I” rating at the state competition.

The Individual Event speech team also had quite a bit of growth. This year, eight students performed at Senior High. They are: juniors Claire Fleming (poetry), Jocy Timmerman (original oratory) and Rene Cazares (original oratory); sophomores Avery Galles (prose) and Hallie Ehn (solo musical theatre); and freshmen Mandy Finnegan (solo musical theatre), Emma Alstott (poetry) and Valeria Cazares (improvisational acting). Ehn, Fleming, Galles and Timmerman received scores that permitted them to compete at the State Individual Event Speech contest held at Woodbury Central High School on March 9.