photo by: Lawrence Public Schools

Free State High School students win the KSHSAA 6A State Speech Championship for the sixth consecutive year.

Free State High School students won a state speech championship for the sixth year in a row.

The KSHSAA 6A State Speech and Drama Championship is a competition for high school students to showcase their skills through various events related to oratory, acting and interpretation.

Free State students won in the speech category and also captured three individual state championships, including two for Anwen Williams in Informative Speech and International Extemporaneous Speaking and one for Gilly Falin in the Lincoln-Douglas Debate, according to a news release from the Lawrence school district.

Students placed at the 6A State Speech Championship as follows:

* Informative: 1st Anwen Williams, 2nd Gillian Sellet and 4th Eli Roust.

* International Extemporaneous Speaking: 1st Anwen Williams, 5th Carter Fite and 7th Nathan Peltier.

* Lincoln Douglas Debate: 1st Gilly Falin and 5th Cooper Elo.

* Original Oratory: 3rd Anwen Williams, 5th Breahna Randall and 7th Olive Minor.

* Poetry: 12th Laura Turner.

* Program of Oral Interpretation: 2nd Kaitlynn Sedich.

* Prose: 4th Olive Minor and 7th Laura Turner.

* United States Extemporaneous Speaking: 2nd Lena Hasiuk.

Coaches for these students include head coach Parker Hopkins, Michael Shelton, Katie McGaughey, Kelly Thompson, Drew Raney and Tim Huffman.

In January, students from Free State also won the KSHSAA 6A State Debate Championship, according to the release. This is the seventh time in 43 years that a school has “united the crowns,” winning both Speech and Debate titles. Additionally, Free State is the only school to have done it twice, in 2019 and 2025.