LOWNDES COUNTY, Ga. (WALB) — Two Lowndes High School (LHS) students brought home medals after Saturday, March 14’s state literary competition, the school announced Monday.

Literary is a Georgia High School Association (GHSA) activity, just like high school football or baseball, but for performing arts, speech and essay writing. It features events like Girl’s and Boy’s Solo (singing), Personal Essay (writing), Dramatic Interpretation (monologue) and more.

For Literary competitions, individuals or small groups must qualify independently, by event to move on to the state competition.

Two students from Lowndes qualified for State, and one of them was named the State Champion in her event.

Anita Bandhakavi won the state title for her event, International Extemporaneous Speaking. Arguably the toughest event in the competition, International Extemp. requires competitors to prepare and deliver a speech in a short amount of time. They must study, gather notes and present an argument about a global topic to a panel of judges.

For Extemporaneous events, competitors are assigned a topic at random the day of competition.

Lowndes’ own Dylan Barr competed at State for Domestic Extemporaneous Speaking, which requires students to present an argument about a topic within the United States. Barr took home silver and a State Runner-Up title in her first year ever competing, LHS said.

LHS congratulated the students on their achievements in a Facebook post saying, “We are so proud of the hard work, research, and ‘Fine Arts muscle’ these students put into their craft. Way to represent LHS!”

Congratulations, Anita and Dylan!

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