WAKEFIELD – After competing in the NSAA State Unified Speech exhibition, a northeast Nebraska high school student will soon be showcased on TV.
According to coach Donna Johnson from Wakefield, Miguel Ibarra will be featured in the ‘Best of the Best’ on Nebraska PBS this weekend.
Miguel, a senior at Wakefield High School, has been in speech for two years while also participating in One Act for four years and is in his second year for being involved with the Wakefield National Honor Society.
Coach Donna Johnson from Wakefield said, “he is an amazing student and each teacher here at Wakefield is excited to see him shine. Miguel works hard and isn’t afraid to come in early or stay after for practice. In One Act this year, he played Hades. He was given awards at Lewis Conference One Act and C-1 District levels for his portrayal.”
During this past speech season for Wakefield, Miguel made the medal round at the Hartington Newcastle/Cedar Catholic Invite finishing third in the JV division while earning fifth place JV medals during both the Homer Knight Invite and Pierce High Speech Tournament.
‘Nebraska Speech Best of the Best’ will air at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 21 on Nebraska Public Media.
Miguel will be performing his speech ‘Graduation’ by Jerry Rabushka. He performed this Humorous Prose speech at the Unified State Speech for Class C1 on March 21.
A synopsis of the speech provided by coach Johnson: Forget those boring end-of-year speeches—graduation reveals exactly what’s on the speakers’ minds! With three distinct characters for the talented actor: the class valedictorian who reveals the dirt on classmates and teachers; the “popular kid,” who spent a lifetime acquiring and manipulating data on who’s “in” and who’s “out” and the very sorry principal who’s all too happy to see these students graduate—whether they deserve to or not.
Miguel performs with three main characters. The valedictorian (he creates him to be quite snobby and with a bit of an English accent), the popular kid (a bit of a California flavor with a bit of an airhead attitude and the principal (I feel he has taken every male administrator and added some quirky parts to it to make this part pop).
Following the speech, there will be an interview with Miguel and coach Donna Johnson.
Coach Johnson added, “we are excited to share Miguel and his speech not only with our community, but with the television audience. Taping the speech was a surreal moment for all of us and we feel blessed and honored to have not only for Miguel to represent Wakefield and our community. He’s making history as being the first Unified Best of the Best to share his talent on TV. Coach Sindelar and myself are quite proud. We hope we all have a chance to watch the performance on Sunday.”
There are 11 students from across Nebraska who will be participating in the Best of the Best. These students recorded their speeches on Wednesday, April 10 at Lincoln Southwest High School and again will air at 2 p.m. this Sunday on Nebraska Public Media.
- Unified Speech – Miguel Ibarra (Wakefield/Class C1)
- Humorous Prose – Hanna Josoff (Elmwood-Murdock/Class C2)
- Serious Prose – Parker Graves (Gothenburg/Class B)
- Poetry – Jessica Jackson (Columbus Scotus/Class B)
- Entertainment – Matthew DeMars (Osceola/Class D1)
- Informative – Lillias McKillip – (Lincoln Southeast/Class A)
- Persuasive – Ashlyn Simonson – (Mullen/Class D2)
- Extemporaneous – William Paxton (Stuart/Class D2)
- Program of Oral Interpretation (POI) – Isabelle Heimes (Wynot/Class D2)
- Duet Acting – Mani Lange and Dayton Sudbeck (Hartington-Newcastle/Class C2)
- Oral Interpretation of Drama (OID) – Andrew Hedin, Shaylee Hobbs and Kilee Wilkinson (Bellevue West/Class A)
