Voices Loud and Proud Ring Out from Turner Hall

Click to view image

On Wednesday, January 23, Boonville High School students and faculty gathered with members of the community at Turner Hall for the ninth annual Speakeasy. Speakeasy consists of a poetry reading contest called Poetry Out Loud and is followed by an Open Mic Night, where students and faculty alike showcase their talents. The Poetry Out Loud winners, from third to first, are as follows: Juniors Taylor Tutin and Noah Heaton, and Senior Kate Stodgel. The three students performed “Time Does Not Bring Relief: You All Have Lied” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night” by Walt Whitman, and “Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington Robinson, respectively. Stodgel will be going to participate in the regional Poetry Out Loud competition on February 23 in Columbia, MO. Should she place first there, she will move on to the state contest, and, should she place first there, the national contest will be held in Washington, D.C.

Open Mic Night contained a wide variety of talents, including school band The New with Noah Lammers, Asher Humphrey-Martin, Braden Adams, and Michaela Lenz, Stella Holland, Brett McNeal, and CA II teacher Timothy Brown. Mrs. Courtney’s Humanities class also provided a dessert table in order raise money for the Hope Water project. They were able to raise $150 in donations to give to the project leader Julius Udinyiwe. He will use the money for clean water projects and to help build a school in Benin City, Nigeria.