Bringing home the gold

KEARNEY – The voices of the Hartington-Newcastle High School speech team have led to a first-place victory at the State meet.

HNS won the Class C2 team title at the 2024 Nebraska School Activities Association State Speech Championships on March 21 at Kearney High School.

Hartington-Newcastle sent 11 of its school-record 18 entries to finals and had three event State champions to score 176 points to win the team title. Twin River of Genoa was the runner-up with 156 points and Elmwood-Murdock, last year's State champion, placed third with 118 points.

The 176 points are the most points that HNS has ever scored at a State meet. Hartington-Newcastle now has eight State speech team championships.

"I am very proud of this group of kids, not because they won, but because of their will to win, the work they put in and the support they showed one another throughout the speech season," Hartington-Newcastle speech coach A.J. Johnson said.

"We went into finals knowing we were tied with Twin River for the most finalists with 11, and I was able to watch several of them in finals and I saw their determination in their performances," he said. "They wanted to win." The HNS medalists at the State meet were: - Duet Acting: Seniors Mani Lange and Dayton Sudbeck, State champions; sophomores Dane Gotch and Issac Santiago, fourth.

- Entertainment Speaking: Junior Cole Heimes, State champion.

- Oral Interpretation of Drama: Sophomore Dane Gotch, freshman Trevon Hopping, sophomore Carter Kelly, sophomore Issac Santiago and freshman Austin Sudbeck, State champions; Junior Cole Heimes, freshman Jason Heimes, senior Mani Lange, sophomore Lainey Morten and senior Dayton Sudbeck, fifth.

- Persuasive Speaking: Senior Alexus Hans, second; senior Emma Wubben, fourth.

- Informative Speaking: Senior Kennedy Gotch, third; sophomore Hazel Hochstein, fourth.

- Serious Prose: Sophomore Dane Gotch, third.

- Program of Oral Interpretation: Senior Kennedy Gotch, fifth.

"This was the first time our school has ever had a State champion in Duet Acting," Johnson said. Cole Heimes is the school's seventh State champion in Entertainment Speaking. HNS has now won OID 13 times.

Johnson described himself as "very happy" for the Hartington-Newcastle students who won event championships during this year's State meet.

"Cole has been in Entertainment finals each of his three years in high school, so that was very gratifying for him personally to win that and I was excited he was able to do that," Johnson said.

“I went around the world three and a half times,” he says. “I had dinner with Chiang Kai-shek.”

On the side, he entertained in service clubs and restaurants.

“I worked the Cordon Bleu in Istanbul, the Home Plate Restaurant in Vancouver, Washington,” he says. “I did comedy, pantomime, Broadway-type singing. I also did lots of dialect routines in Jewish, Italian, Irish, French and English. I had a whole thing in Spanish.”

When he retired from the Air Force in 1967, he worked for an insurance company, spent a year relaxing in Cartagena, Spain, “the place Jonah left from when he fell off the boat and was eaten by the whale,” and did some gambling in Las Vegas. Then he came to Maryland as a property manager for a national chain of apartments.

He met Valentino Sacco, the president of Diversified Sales, about three years ago, when Mr. Sacco moved into the building that Mr. Hish was managing. Mr. Sacco persuaded him to join the company and encouraged him to start Mail-A-Poem in June.

“We’ve patented it,” Mr. Hish says. “If it goes, we’ll offer distributorships in all the major cities.”

The phone rings. A man from Ellicott City wants a poem for his wife. The poet shuffles through his portfolio and selects one to read. It goes: “I’ll give you two smiles for one of yours “Two hands to hold one of yours.

I’ll borrow your heartaches, your sorrow “And give you tomorrow “Or a lifetime— because I love you.”

He has considered publishing some of his non-commercial poems, but not until he sees how Mail-A-Poem goes.