Dukes Excel at State Fair

York Public schools shut out the competition for both the middle school and high school levels of Improvisation at the 2013 Nebraska State Fair.

Improv consists of a team of 5 students that do two rounds of Improvisational acting. They are given 5 minutes to prepare each skit and the skit needs to flow smoothly have 5 defined characters, have an opening, middle and resolution, no props and not to exceed 5 minutes. The first round found the YMS teams creating a story line of riding the bus to the fair, the teams had to use the five chairs set in a row; the YHS teams had to have fair animals coming alive. The 2nd round is Doo-Wop; a song and dance ditty highlighting an assigned object. York teams sang odes to a small plastic surf board, a camouflage flip flop, and a hula hoop. York Public Schools earned the first, second, and third place awards in both the middle school and high school divisions.

Fifty plus students from YPS and seven from York’s St. Joe spent the first weekend of the NE State Fair competing in Math, Science, Grammar, Social Studies, Spelling, MS and HS Impromptu Speaking, Improv, Monologue, Quiz bowl, Cup Stacking, and Construction Science Educational Contests. Students come from all sizes of NE schools participate; this year between performance competitions, testing, and early entry contests the NE State Fair Educational department fielded 2200 entries. All students compete at the grade level of their previous school year.

The subject area competitions are tests. Impromptu Speaking is a student is given a choice of 3 topics to chose from and a note card; they have 5 minutes to prepare a cohesive talk MS students talk for a minimum of 2 minutes and not exceed 5 minutes. HS students talk for a minimum of 3 minutes. York’s contestants spoke on school food, what Nebraska Needs, if the State Fair was in a different season, and Nebraska weather.

The Monologue performers choose a character monologue of 30 to 60 lines from a script; write an introduction of why they chose it and what the script/character is about. The monologue is memorized and performed dramatically. Quiz Bowl is a game show atmosphere with teams of 4 members competing by answering various questions. The questions are from multiple categories and vary from easy to difficult.

Cup stacking times how fast a student can stack cups in an assigned manner and return them to a single stack. Construction science had the student investigating a constructed Lego item; the student was allowed to take notes from looking at the constructed item.

The item was then removed from sight and the student was given the correct number of Lego blocks to reconstruct the original item, accuracy of construction and timing was considered in selecting winners.

Early entry contests are projects entered a head of the fair to be judged these include graphic design, power point presentation, art, and essay based on a Nebraska theme; environmental poster, penmanship, brick art (Legos) and community service notebook and poster round out early entry opportunities.

The top 12 competitors are recognized in events and contests, this is 6 places and honorable mentions. First and second places earn a scholarships too. Overall awards are given recognizing top schools and individuals competing in multiple events. Individuals earning awards in a number of events compete in the sweepstakes honor by age divisions; YPS students earning sweepstakes honors are: grades K-2, 5th place, Anthony Gillespie, grades 3-5, 4th place, Matt Mittman, grades 6-8, 1st place, Nicole Mittman, and grades 9-12, 6th Paul Holmes. YHS earned to 3rd place trophy for all high schools competing.

Many spectators who stopped to watch improv and quiz bowl commented to me on how creative, positive, and intelligent the York students are. “I totally agree!” states State Fair Competitions Sponsor Mr. Hubbard. “The students always do a marvelous job. This year Conner Mogul, a 2013 graduate of YHS and former State Fair competitor coached the middle school and high school improv teams. He did such a fantastic job!”

If anyone wants more information about State Fair Education Competitions and Contests please contact Sheila Hubbard: sheila.hubbard@yorkdukes.org or 402-362-6655 options #2.