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The community of Unalaska is a busy place to live. Our community calendar is full of events and activities. About Town is your source for coverage of community events and sports. KUCB staff writes many of the stories, but we also accept contributions from community members for this section of our website. If you'd like to submit a story to About Town, send it to info@kucb.org.

Unalaska Raiders Win Fourteen Medals At State Language Competition

Galena Roraback

Last Thursday, nineteen students from Unalaska City High School traveled to Anchorage to compete for the AASA State Language Competition. The UCSD students traveled with the supervision of the school’s foreign language teacher, Mrs. Galena Roraback, and competed in the State Spanish and German Language Competitions.  Students who participated in the event have worked hard all year with the supportive help of the Mrs. Roraback, and were excited to be at the one-day-long competition.

  

Both Spanish and German competitions took place on Saturday at West Anchorage High School. The competitors were divided according to how long they have studied a language for. For example, if a student studied three years of Spanish, they would compete in the Spanish 3 level competition. This state-wide event challenges the students in a variety of ways in order to determine who has the best knowledge of the language for their level. There are different events that a student can choose to compete in their chosen language: Poetry, Dialogue, Monologue, and Trivia. For poetry, a student will recite a poem from memory in front of  a panel of judges. For the Dialogue category, two students pick a topic from a pre-existing list and hold a conversation for more than two minutes. For the Impromptu category, a student picks a topic from a pre-existing list and talk about this topic in front of the judges. Competitors are judged according to volume of voice, poise, memorization and a few other factors. A student who participates in country trivia will have to study facts about their country and answer questions regarding it, and the student who has the most amount of correct answers will be the winner.

  

Unalaska Raiders dominated in their category and brought back 14 medals in total. Spanish students took home twelve medals with Alleri Tungul taking the gold medal for level 3 poetry and James Vuong and Nathaniel Tungul taking the first place for level 2 dialogue. Ariel Go took the silver medal for both level 2 trivia and level 2 poetry, Maverick Castillo and Abigail Go holds the second place medal for level 1 dialogue, Erica Andres took the silver medal for level 1 poetry and John Villena took the silver medal for level 3 poetry. Marinolle Acoba took the bronze medal for level 1 poetry, Raven Marquez holds the bronze medal for level 2 poetry, and Elizabeth Escalante took the bronze medal for native speaker poetry. Bailey Hanh and Jerome Molina also received medals for the German language competition with Hanh taking the silver medal for level 2 impromptu, and Molina taking the second place for level 3 poetry. Good job Raiders!

  

During this competition, Mrs Roraback was also recognized during the award ceremony for her never-ending dedication in teaching foreign language to her students. The passion she has for her work helped numerous students achieve their dreams. This trip is especially memorable because it is Mrs. Roraback’s last year of teaching in Unalaska City High School. Her students are deeply thankful for all the lessons and memories she has left us. We will miss you Mrs. Roraback!