Piedmont Literary Wins All Three Sections

Piedmont Academy’s literary and music team recently took top honors at the GISA Region 1AA competition which involves 14 events of writing, acting, speaking, singing and playing the piano. The event was held on Tuesday, March 8, at First Baptist Church Milledgeville.

This most recent victory represents a sweep for the group who won all three region literary championships with one-act play in November, debate in January, and now spring literary and music. The school last achieved the region literary sweep in the 2007-2008 school year.

Matthew O’Brien, a senior, competed in the humorous interpretation category where he performed a selection from Jonathan Rand’s one-act play Action News: Now With 10% More Action. This most recent award is further recognition of Mr. O’Brien’s acting talent as he received outstanding performance awards at both region and state one-act competitions.
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Sophomore Samantha Ramsdell competed in the dramatic interpretation category by performing Sheri Wilner’s short play, The Unknown Part of the Ocean. Miss Ramsdell defeated a senior competitor in dramatic interpretation who was last year’s region and state champion in the category.

Senior Mary Ashlynn Dennis and junior Samuel McGinnis won first place in duo interpretation. In this event two students perform a piece together, but the pair can never look at each other directly or touch. Piedmont’s duo performed segments of Check, Please: Take Two, a comedy in one-act by Jonathan Rand.

All of Piedmont’s competitors in interpretation events earned high praises from the judges and received near perfect scores of 198, with Mr. O’Brien earning 199 out of 200.

In Extemporaneous Speaking, Mr. O’Brien and junior Davis Kimball were given the task of drawing three potential topics, choosing one of those topics, and writing a speech. The pool of possible topics, created by the GISA state office, could come from any event that has been in state, national, or international news since September.

After 30 minutes of preparation, Mr. O’Brien spoke on whether or not the European Union should provide a $100 billion bailout for Ireland. Mr. Kimball spoke about the status of the national health care law with the recent ruling by an appeals court that the law is unconstitutional and the effect this will have on the American people.

Mr. McGinnis placed first in the argumentative essay category for his paper on the steps the United States government should take in dealing with North Korea. Also writing essays for Piedmont were sophomores Carley Cain in the personal essay category and Miss Ramsdell in the rhetorical analysis essay category. All essayists are unaware of the competition’s topics until the two-hour time limit begins. Contestants are not allowed to use any materials in the preparation of their essays.

Eighth grader and boys soloist Gabriel Courtman sang, “Angels Through the Night” arranged by Philip Kern and “Where Did You Get That Hat” by Joseph Sullivan.

Senior Amy Anuszczyk placed fourth in the competition with her performance of “Come Thou Fount” arranged by Richard Walters and “Someone to Watch Over Me” by George and Ira Gershwin.

Mr. Courtman is also a member of the boys quartet with Mr. Kimball, Mr. McGinnis, and freshman Gabe Hestad. This group performed “The Water is Wide” arranged by Luigi Zaninelli and “Grumble Too Much,” arranged by Rosephanye Powell. The quartet placed second.

Singing “Laudate Dominum” arranged by Earlene Rentz and “Mary, Mary” by George Donnelly and Mary Strid, freshman Savannah McGinnis, sophomore Clare Maloney, and senior Angelia Brown placed third in the girls trio competition. The group tied for second in points with a score of 197 but lost the tie-breaker in judges’ ranks.

The judges both commented that the trio event was the toughest vocal music competition of the day, and the overall quality of vocal performances of the day was the best they had seen in years.

Katie Odegaard, a freshman, placed third in the category of spelling where she had to spell 125 difficult words.

Miss McGinnis also participated in the piano competition with her renditions of “Sonatina in A Minor” by Georg Anton Benda and “Shepherd’s Song and Dance” by William Scher.

Supporting their team members at the region competition were alternates Audrey Cleary and Jared Smith.

Each student who placed fourth or higher received points toward a team trophy, and Piedmont tied for first place with Brentwood School of Sandersville with 57 total points each. These schools beat out Briarwood School with 33 points, Covenant Academy and Gatewood School with 32 points each and Monsignor Donovan Catholic High School with 12 points.

Ms. Bobbi Sauls coached the team this year, and Mrs. Deanna Williams was the accompanist for the singing events.

Piedmont Academy was the competition host, and working diligently to tabulate and check all scores at the competition were Piedmont faculty members Suzanne Arena, Traci Brady, and Kelli Fain. The team was also supported by many friends and family members who traveled to Milledgeville for the day’s competition.

All students who placed first or second in region competition qualified for state competition which is scheduled today, March 17, at Valdosta State University.