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Sarah Yannone to Nationals for Speech and Debate

By Tori Putman, Staff Writer — The speech and debate journey has been a long and successful one for senior, Sarah Yannone. This year, Sarah is the only student from GlenOak to qualify for the Speech and Debate Nationals in Texas.

Sarah has competed in speech all four years of high school. This is the first year she has qualified for nationals, as well as achieving first place in her event, Original Oratory at States. Nationals are considered to be the ‘big district’ tournament. Qualifiers are based on the number of competitors in a category from Akron and Canton districts combined. Yannones category, Original Oratory, was able to qualify three competitors to the national tournament. Sarah placed in the top three, causing her to become the national qualifier.

“When I qualified, it felt like a dream come true. Going to nationals has been a goal of mine since freshman year and finally achieving that was an indescribable feeling,” Yannone said.

Sarah will be the only student this year attending nationals from the speech and debate team. Nationals will take place in Dallas, Texas. Only the top competitors from districts in each state qualify to go to the tournament. Both of her coaches will be attending nationals with her.

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“I’m most excited to be able to push myself to a higher level of competition and to spend time with my coaches and other teams from my district,” Yannone said.

Only the top three of each category per district qualify to go to nationals, causing the competition to be the best of each district. Yannone will be up against other students from schools all across the country.

Sarah will be competing her own Original Oratory speech at nationals this year. She will be up against other students who have done the same and competed their speeches all year long, as she has done.

[Updated Aug. 12, 2017: This article has been reformatted for consistency.]

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Sarah Yannone to Nationals for Speech and Debate