Pierre, SD - The first State Declamation Contest was held in 1910 as part of that year’s State High School Track and Field Meet. In 1911, the first state-wide Declamation Contest was held independent of the State Track Meet. From those modest beginnings 100 years ago those early declamation contests have evolved into the modern State Oral Interpretation Festival of today. This year students from 95 South Dakota high schools will compete in the 102nd Annual SDHSAA State Oral Interpretation Festival on Friday and Saturday December 2-3 in Pierre. The Friday December 2nd competition will be held at the Pierre Ramkota RiverCentre and will move to the Pierre T.F. Riggs High School on Saturday December 3rd.
This year’s State Interpretation Festival competitors have qualified for the Festival through a combination local school, district and regional competitions. The Festival will feature a combined total of 293 Class "AA", Class "A" and Class "B" entries. The Class "B" State Oral Festival competitors were determined by advancing from one of the ten district contests to a Class “B” regional contests and advancing from their region contest to the State Festival. The Class "A" State Festival competitors qualified for the State Festival after advancing from one of five Class “A” regional contests. Class "AA" contestants have advanced to the State Festival as a result of intraschool competition in their own schools. The 2011 State Oral Interpretation Festival will showcase competitive performances by 86 entries from 13Class "AA" schools, 105 entries from 36 Class "A" schools and 102 entries from 46 Class "B" schools.
The State Oral Interpretation Festival, sponsored by the South Dakota High School Activities Association, brings together South Dakota’s best high school oral interpretation speakers in a “festival” setting. During the State Festival the students will compete to achieve a "Superior" rating which is the equivalent of a state championship in their contest event. State Oral Interpretation Festival competition is divided into seven contest events: Non-Original Oratory, Interpretation of Serious Plays, Interpretation of Serious Prose, Poetry Reading, Humorous Reading, Duet Interpretation, and Readers Theatre.
The State Oral Interpretation Festival competition will begin on Friday morning, December 2nd at 10:00. The Festival's second and third sessions will be held at 2:30 Friday afternoon and at 7:00 Friday evening respectively The Festival will conclude at Pierre T.F. Riggs High School with two sessions at 9:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. on Saturday December 3rd. The awards for each session’s competition will be announced at the conclusion of the session. “Team Excellence” awards, recognizing the high schools whose over all entries excelled during the State Festival, will be presented at the conclusion of competition on Saturday afternoon.
The public is encouraged to attend any or all of the sessions of the State Festival.
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