Talkin' Tigers win state speech honors

Members of the Talkin' Tigers speech team pose for a photo before they left for this year's state competition.

For the third straight year, the Mountain Home Talkin' Tigers can claim a state champion. Dylon Nute and Dixon Kean earned top honors in Duo Interpretation last weekend at the state high school speech competition in Twin Falls.

Both seniors, Nute and Kean were judged first among the 43 entries from the 27 schools that participated at the event. Nute and Kean earned top honors with their interpretation of "Mary Choppins."

The string of Talkin' Tigers state champions began in 2011 when Joann King was state champion in Dramatic Interpretation and Marissa Aiken was first in Expository Speaking. King was once again state champion in Dramatic Interpretation last year. Eli Holland is the only other state champion from Mountain Home, winning Retold Story in 2009.

Shelby Aguirre was also in a final round last weekend as the sophomore finished sixth in Broadcast Journalism.

Brandon Sams (Oratorical Analysis), Tim Menhart (Retold Story) Jeremy Cruz (Broadcast Journalism), Aubree Ogaard (Dramatic Interpretation) and Dylon Nute (Dramatic Interpretation) were all semi-finalists.

Alicia Clark, Scott Crighton, Mario Garduno, Megan Heinen, Dez Ruiz, Matt Ryan and Jared Shaw also represented Mountain Home at the state championships.

Overall, the Talkin' Tigers team finished fourth.