Oakville High School sophomores Nora Ovchiyan, left, and Brittany Kohne took first in Duo Interpretation of L. Frank Baum’s ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ at the first Oakville-Mehlville Novice Speech and Debate Invitational.

Two Oakville High School sophomores won first-place honors at the first Oakville-Mehlville Novice Speech and Debate Invitational.
Novices are students in their first school year of competition, and the invitational took place over two days at Oakville and Mehlville high schools.
Fifteen schools coming from as far as Jackson, Columbia and Mexico had over 130 entries in nine speech events Jan. 19 at Oakville High School, and 13 schools debated five rounds in Lincoln-Douglas, Public Forum and Policy Debates the next day at Mehlville High School.
Oakville sophomores Brittany Kohne and Nora Ovchiyan took first in Duo Interpretation of L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”
Oakville sophomore Tommy Jackson took sixth in Prose Interpretation.
Ladue took first in Speech Sweeps and Marquette finished second.
Parkway West High School took First Sweepstakes in Debate, but Ladue High, which had three first-place finishes in Speech, took the combined Speech-Debate Sweepstakes.