Abbeville grad headed for national speech competitions

Only one High School Speech competitor from Vermilion Parish qualified for the National Forensic League Speech tournament in Chicago, Illinois in June 2014.
Anika Claire Spiehler, a graduating senior at Abbeville High School, will present her Original Oratory selection entitled “Impossible Standards.”

Anika also qualified for the national tournament of the Catholic Forensic League, where she will compete with the same Original Oratory in Kansas City, Kansas this May.

Anika is an honor graduate with a 3.5 GPA from Abbeville High. She transferred this year from John Paul the Great Academy in Lafayette when her family moved to Big Woods Mission in Abbeville. As she talked with her school counselor at the beginning of this year, she realized she had enough credits to do both her Junior and her Senior Year in one year.

With a lot of hard work, Anika completed 11 subjects, including three online classes to graduate with the 2014 class. So much study kept her very busy, but she found time to be an active member of the AHS speech club. Speech is one of Anika’s passions.

Her Oratory selection is an exhortation for women to be confident in real beauty and not to be swept away by false definitions of beauty.

Anika is the daughter of Sarah Summers Granger, her step-dad is Kevin Granger of Abbeville. Jason Spiehler is her dad, from New York and Rome.

Anika has had many opportunities to travel and experience different countries and cultures. But her education began at Seventh Ward Elementary in Kindergarten and Third Grade.

She was a missionary in Mexico where she attended first, fourth and fifth grade. There she was elelcted Queen of Dr. Jesus Ramos Primary School. She attended Santissima Trinidad for her second grade in Cordoba, Spain.

Anika also lived in Rome. She was homeschooled in Metarie, Louisiana where she had one of the leading roles in two dramas presented by the Homeschool group.

Anika was elected by her class as the Most Likely to pursue and Acting Career. Anika plans to attend Aveeda Institute in Lafayette next year. She is also considering studying Fashion Design.