T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY — Marshalltown High School junior Paige Haughey, left, and senior Stephanie Lizarde, right, have been recognized as all-state individual speech performers in the categories of after dinner speaking and acting, respectively.

Other than a brief stint on the wrestling team that was quickly cut short due to an injury last year, Marshalltown High School senior Stephanie Lizarde had never participated in an extracurricular activity before she chose to go out for speech this winter. Just a few months later, Lizarde and junior Paige Haughey are heading to Cedar Falls as first time Iowa High School Speech Association (IHSSA) individual all-state performers.

Lizarde was nominated for her acting performance, “Multiple Personality Murder,” and Haughey will be presenting a comedic after dinner speech about the supremacy of velcro shoes over all others. Lizarde said she was inspired to get involved in speech contest after taking a drama class and delivering a three-minute monologue that caught the attention of her instructor. Districts were her first competition ever.

Haughey, who has also performed in several MHS drama productions, has been in speech since her freshman year but said she did “so bad” then and felt the need to redeem herself. The after dinner address that ended up taking her to all-state started as a joke with friends quickly conceived on the Notes app, but Coach Ryan Boley felt it was hilarious and had serious potential.

“It’s about wearing velcro shoes and how any other type of shoes are abominations and you should only wear velcro shoes,” Haughey said. “It’s not even just not wearing tied shoes. It’s not wearing tied or slip-ons or anything — only velcros. I play this character who just goes on a really long tangent, and every once in a while, he breaks off to talk about, like, ‘I’m an orphan. Nuns raised me. I didn’t have time to learn how to tie my shoes.’ He’s just kind of crazy, but I was really excited that I made it to all-state because I didn’t think I would.”

In general, after dinner speeches run the gamut from more lighthearted fare like Haughey’s velcro shoes manifesto or another that featured a door-to-door door salesman to more serious matters like political and educational issues.

Lizarde’s acting performance, as its title suggests, is much more dramatic and requires her to inhabit several personas within one character. She described the setup as a woman being interrogated by a doctor with a security guard next to her — as it turned out, the character killed her father in response to sexual and physical abuse.

“It’s a very uncomfortable piece because you go from this very arrogant and confident person, and it drops to a little girl. So I’m talking in a very high-pitched voice, and then it cuts to this other personality where she’s very provocative and seductive, and the reason why I really like my acting piece is because at the end, I scream and I throw a chair and I basically lash out,” she said.

Some of her practices were so intense, Lizarde added, that other teachers were emailing Boley with concern about what was happening in his room, but word quickly spread about just how special the performance was. Haughey counts herself as one of her fellow all-stater’s biggest fans, and Boley is proud of his all-state performers and all of the other Bobcat competitors — including 20 state qualifiers — who have made this season so successful.

“I would like to say I am incredibly proud of the young people on this team, it is easy to coach speech with students who are as committed and passionate about performance as they are here. Stephanie and Paige worked very hard on their pieces as did all students on the team,” he said. “It is great to see Stephanie and Paige being rewarded for all of their time and energy put into their art. They made my first year as the individual events coach a lot of fun here at Marshalltown. I look forward to seeing what we can do in the future!”

Looking forward, Lizarde plans to attend MCC for her AA degree and pursue either voice acting or tattoo artistry, and Haughey intends to become a teacher someday. They both feel that speech has prepared them for the future, and Lizarde, in particular, appreciates the way it’s pushed her out of her comfort zone.

“I don’t think there’s a single second where I regret doing this. I feel like if everybody has a chance to do it, just do it because, for me, being a senior (and) almost leaving school, it’s better to take the risk than to look back five years in the future and be like ‘I should’ve done that,'” she said.

Haughey couldn’t agree more.

“I think speech is something that everyone should do, and I think a lot of people say that about their extracurriculars. But I feel like I have gained so much in speech,” she said. “I really think that it helps everybody, and it’s such a community-based thing. I don’t feel like I’m competing with other people when I’m there. I don’t feel like I’ve ever not cheered a teammate even if they’re in the same category as me because you want everyone to do good. You know everyone in that room has spent months working on this piece that they’re trying to perfect.”

Lizarde will be performing Monday at the Strayer Wood Main House at the Strayer Wood Theatre on the UNI campus during a session that runs from 3 to 4:15 p.m., and Haughey’s session runs from 1:30 to 2:45 p.m. in the Oak Room of the Maucker Union. To learn more about the festival and/or purchase tickets to the event, visit https://www.ihssa.org/contests/individual-events/all-state/.