CC Student goes to Individual Speech All-State

By Thomas Nelson, tnelson@charlescitypress.com

Elias King went to All-State speech on a performance he made on a goof.

King, a junior at Charles City High School, went to All-State Individual Speech at Cedar Falls Sunday, March 26.

King performed children’s poems by Michael Rosen because of an inside joke. He was going to try to perform the Rosen’s poems last year, but was unable to.

“I didn’t honestly expect to get very far. I was just doing it for fun,” King said. “I’m not very competitive.”

He’s still happy about making it to All-State. King was surprised everyone liked it so much as he did the act as a goof, he said.

“They’re all done from the perspective of a child, and you need a theme for your poems and I couldn’t think of anything,” King said.

King ended up using over-exaggeration as a theme for his performance.

The performance is meant to make someone laugh, which is exactly what happened with his judges at the State Individual Events contest in Forest City at Waldorf University, King said.

King’s favorite poem that isn’t meant for children is “The Raven,” by Edgar Allen Poe, he said.

Prior to being in speech, and while in middle school, King had stage fright, he said.

In eighth grade King was randomly assigned a topic to give a speech for a class, he said. He had watched several stand-up comedians and saw that they were confident and funny during their acts.

“All my friends tell me I have a good speaking voice, but I was shy about it,” King said.

King drew the topic of talking to girls, and the only girls he spoke with didn’t go to his school, he said. During the speech he exaggerated his own experience.

“I got up there and talked about what I knew and everybody thought it was hilarious,” King said. “So I decided to do speech.”

In ninth grade King made it to the state competition with a self-written after dinner speech about conspiracy theories.

“It was like a club meeting. It started off, ‘on next week’s agenda just a reminder Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa are alive on an island.’ It was a really funny big thing,” King said. “We’d take random things and make conspiracy theories out of it.”

Like King’s current performance, his ninth grade speech was based on a joke between him and his friends, he said.

King participated in large group speech his freshman year as well, he said.

“I’m happy I made it to All-State, but I wouldn’t have been bummed if I did’t make it,” King said. “It’s just something fun for me to do.”