Three Dixie Heights high school students won top honors at the Kentucky High School Speech League (KHSSL) Regional Speech Tournament on Saturday.
Students from across 19 counties competed in the tournament.
Ronan Duke, a junior, was named Regional Champion in Dramatic Interpretation. Erin Vallaincourt, a junior, and Gauge Golji, a freshman, were named Regional Runners Up in Duo Interpretation.
Golji and Duke were also named Regional Runners Up in Improvisational Duo.
At each regional contest, area champions and runners-up are named in each of the twelve junior and fourteen senior speech categories. Additionally, team awards are given to the top three teams in each of the Regions.
In addition to the honors at the tournament, several Dixie Heights students also qualified to advance to the state tournament.
They are:
- Valeriia Polion in Broadcasting
- Ronan Duke in Broadcasting
- Erin Vaillancourt in Poetry
- Gauge Golgi in Poetry
The regional competitions serve as qualifiers for the upcoming state speech tournaments.
Kentucky’s seven regions hold these tournaments at both the junior and senior levels each year. Each qualifies students for the junior state speech tournament (grades 4-8) or the senior state speech tournament (grades 9-12), with state contests held at the University of Kentucky Feb. 24-25 (junior state) and at Northern Kentucky University March 10-11 (senior state).