“Good evening everybody. Thank you for being at our board meeting tonight. My name is Chase Anderson and I'm the superintendent for the school district and it's always my pleasure to convene the recognitions portions of our school board meeting.”

Opening remarks for the recognition segment.

“Good evening, Superintendent Anderson, members of the board, and everybody else gathered here tonight. My name is Rachel. I'm the Risetta High School student body vice president, but not for much longer. As summer break invitingly awaits us, I feel bittersweet in giving my final school board report for May.”

Introduction for her final report.

“All right, I know what you guys are thinking about. Don't miss me too much. There is so much in store to celebrate seniors.”

Concluding her report and looking forward to senior celebrations.

“The Wisetta speech team has meant so, so much to me over the past four years. It's given me so much confidence. It's given me so much happiness. And this year, the thing that made me succeed the most was actually not caring about the results at all. I started focusing on just like having fun and doing what I love because storytelling is kind of a weird category in speech where you don't just have one speech. You actually have 15 speeches and you click a button and it gives you three options out of those 15 and you pick one, you have 30 minutes to prep and then you go give a speech.”

Reflecting on her speech career and approach to success.

“So I just want to encourage everyone, it's not always about the result. It's also about having fun and doing what you love, cuz that's what in the end matters. And also, I want to thank my coach because me and the other person in storytelling this year, we were both in theater. So, we can't do anything after school. So, Rachel met with us at 7 am three times a week for basically four years. So I just could not be more grateful to have a more dedicated like I couldn't ask for more dedicated coach, one who cares so much about our success. She has like 1 million spreadsheets on all of us, all of our stats and everything uh in our feedback so that she can help us succeed the most. And I'm just so grateful for her eternal support. So, thank you very much.”

Encouraging others and expressing gratitude to her coach.

“Speech has 13 different categories. I only coach one category, storytelling. I'm an assistant coach and I've coached Cassidy since she was a freshman, so for four years. For a little bit of context, what it looks like to be in speech, which is competitive public speaking. You have to go to a tournament. You speak three times that day. Three times. You get three different judges. If your scores are good enough, then you will advance to finals where you will compete against the best of the best that day.”

Explaining the speech category and competition structure.

“And I'm telling you, they crushed it. I know my category, I know my storytellers, and they were phenomenal. But of course, top eight in the state of Minnesota. What are the judges going to do? You never know, right? So, we have to wait on Pins and Needles until they bring us into the theater. They call it the storytelling category. The top eight kids in eighth place, in seventh, in sixth, in fifth. I'm shaking. Oh my god, they haven't said our names yet. In fourth, in third, it goes to Owen. The crowd goes wild. Yay. Which leaves Cassidy and one other person. She's either first or second. What's it going to be? Second place goes to different girl. Oh my god, it's Cassidy. As a senior, as a returning senior who didn't even make it into finals last year, she came back like a phoenix and won it all.”

Describing the intense final round of the storytelling competition.

“Rough acts to follow, man. Two speech winners and then Rachel, who's just charismatic as all get out. Um, so like he said, we had tons of awards this year. Uh, Galina actually won two regional gold keys. One for a demon teapot and then one for a pair of knights helmets that she made. Those also went on to win the national one of the national gold keys. um which every state brings forth their gold key winners and then they're presented at national awards and very few get that honor. So that's great.”

Acknowledging previous speakers and introducing art award achievements.

“I am truly honored to receive this award. We moved to Minnesota four years ago, and my daughter, who was entering middle school at the time, said, "Mom, can you please sub at my school?" And my look to her was, "You want me to sub middle school? I don't know how I feel about that, but I said I would give it a try."”

Expressing honor and recounting the start of her journey in the district.

“Things have changed, but I learned that I absolutely love it. I love the colleagues that I work with and I found that CMS is a family and I am so grateful to be in the position that I'm in because I can work with parents, I work with staff, I work with students and they all are super welcoming. So I am honored to be here and I'm grateful for receiving this award. So thank you.”

Reflecting on her experience and gratitude for her current role.