OHS junior captures state speech title

As results were being announced at the state speech meet from eighth place to first, Owatonna junior Ayoub Farah didn’t hear his name right away. So, he knew he had improved on last year’s seventh-place finish.

As the countdown continued and he still didn’t hear his name, he thought to himself, “Oh, I beat my sister. That’s pretty nice.”

When he was announced as the state discussion champion on April 26 at Shakopee High School, he was ecstatic. “I didn’t really expect it. I’m pleasantly surprised,” he said.

He texted his sister Fardouza the news. “She was very happy for me. Just very, very excited,” Farah said.

In discussion, “They give you a task and you work on it as a group. It’s not supposed to be a debate. It’s a group activity where you try to come together with some sort of consensus on the topic.

“They judge you based on how you collaborate with others, how you interact with others. Obviously, you have to be polite. They judge you based on the quality of your research, how you source your research, how you respond to potential criticism.”

Workplace challenges were the basis for this season’s discussion topics.

Farah shares his appreciation. “I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to the amazing coaches I have had this year, especially (Mark) Anderson, for their support and guidance,” he said.

Marcia and Mark Anderson were named Section 1AA coaches of the year.

“I am also grateful to the judges whose thoughtful critiques helped me grow, and to all my fellow competitors for the many memorable and meaningful rounds,” Farah said.

He joined in eighth grade to be in an activity with his sister, a 2022 OHS graduate, who placed fourth in discussion her senior year.

Farah might double up with extemporaneous speaking next year, a political-themed category.

Senior Vitaly Bauer competed at state for the second time. “You never feel like you’re better than anyone else. It always feels like an equal playing ground…It is so competitive,” he said.

His humorous interpretation takes a different angle on the spy-thriller genre, “My speech is 008. It is a James Bond spin-off. I usually do get quite a bit of laughs at my Midwest character. My speech director actually was the one who gave me that character. And then my evil villain, which I have a very different voice for,” Bauer said.

And best of all, his season is not over. Bauer qualified for nationals in Missouri May 15-18. Only about half of the speech categories offered in Minnesota have a national competition according to Mark Anderson. Bauer earned his bid during a pair of regular-season competitions.

Junior Noelle Kubicek made her first trip to state in her third year of informative speaking, this season on Sign Language. “I learned it first in sixth grade. It’s been something really important to me since then,” she said.

Her speech was more complicated and visuals more complex for which she credits her coaches for being “nitpicky and being as consistent as possible.”

She was looking forward to the camaraderie of state. “I’m just hoping to make some new friends. Speech is such a great community…Learn more about my topic and what I can do for next year,” Kubicek said.

Heather Walker is a first-year speech student. The senior says, “I wanted to push myself. Try something new.”

She was in extemporaneous reading and got assigned a short story at each event, “I really got into this category because my dad was such a good bedtime story reader to me as a kid.”

Walker was ready for state to be “a very intense normal meet.”