Kelsey Holeczy

WHEELING — Wheeling Park High School speech team senior Kelsey Holeczy says it meant more to her to use her voice to speak out for others than it did to attend her senior prom.

Holeczy missed the WPHS prom this weekend as she competed at the JW Patterson Tournament of Champions at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

The end result is that she made the finals of the oral interpretation of literature competition, and finished sixth among 1,300 entries. In total, there were 320 schools represented at the tournament, hailing from 38 states and five countries.

Holeczy explained she didn’t even prepare to go to the prom after learning a year ago the school event and the tournament would take place on the same weekend. She planned to instead practice for the tournament and advance while there.

“I love to share my voice and advocate for those who can’t always be heard,” Holeczy continued. “To me, that’s more important than spending $1,000 on a dress.”

Oral interpretation of literature is a category where performers prepare and present both a prose and poetry selection, then switch off round by round. Holeczy’s prose and poetry selections had a common theme of overcoming addiction and mental health struggles.

She drew from “Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget” by Sarah Hepola, and from the work of Kori Jane Spaulding.

“It’s something I could relate to, and something my family relates to,” she explained. “It’s talked about in society a lot. People don’t always understand what it is to go through these things unless you’ve gone through them.”

Holeczy acknowledged the oral interpretation of literature category is a difficult one that requires double the practice and concentration from the presenter.

“It’s a lot of extra work,” she said. “Usually you have just one piece, and you practice it over and over again. It takes double the amount of time and effort, and it is more scary. You are not doing just the same thing over and over again — you are switching back and forth.”

Holeczy was joined by three other WPHS students at the tournament — sophomore Siyanne Lopez and juniors Levi Powell and Dana Schodzinski. Leading them were speech team coaches Jen Mathieu and Isabella Droginske.

Droginske expressed pride in the performance of the students, especially that of Holeczy.

“She had to fight tooth and nail,” Droginske said. “She qualified, and Kelsey gave up senior prom to participate.”

Droginske added she was very grateful to the community that supports the WPHS speech team and its legacy.

“Ohio County Schools allows us to compete on a national level,” Droginske said. “Sometimes we do feel like fish out of water. … There are some private schools where parents spend thousands of dollars for students to get a chance to focus on speech and debate. We are just grateful to be able to compete with them.”