Knoxville High School senior Shannon Yocum performed at the Iowa State High School Speech Association’s Individual Event All-State festival this past Monday.

Shannon performed “Climbing Uphill” from the musical The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown. Performers received judges’ critiques and medals at the event that was held at the University of Northern Iowa. Of the approximately 10,000 students who perform in individual event speech only a portion of them advance to state speech. Three judges at state speech nominated outstanding performers to participate and speak in the All-State festival. This year there were 464 performers at All-State.