HHS senior wins fifth place In IHSA State Speech Finals

Macartney Motsinger, 18, likes to talk and make people laugh. He also likes math and swimming.

This past weekend Motsinger made a lot of people laugh in Peoria with his speech, "Genetically Altered Genesis." He made the judges laugh especially loud. He placed fifth in the state.

Harrisburg High School sent two contestants to Peoria to compete in the Illinois High School Association Individual Events State Finals at the Peoria Civic Center. The other Harrisburg speech contestant was Gabriella Tison, 17, also a senior. Her event was Informative Speeches and Motisinger's was Humorous Interpretations. Tison, although she gave her speech twice in the preliminary competition, did not advance to the final round. Motsinger did advance.

"It was kind of crazy," said Motsinger. "I made it to state before but I had never broken into the final round. There was so much talent there. I gave it my all."

His all was very good.

Especially good when one considers that tiny Harrisburg was competing on a level playing field with the biggest school in the state of Illinois. There is no classification of schools according to size in this IHSA competition.

Motsinger also is on the swim team and he has just been notified that he is getting a $10,000 athletic scholarship to Bethel University, a Presbyterian school in Cumberland County, Tenn.

"I started swimming competitively at age 4. I would like to compete in the Olympics," he said.

He will compete for Bethel for his four years there, according to the scholarship agreement.

Motsinger has one brother and one sister. He plans to teach math because he was inspired to teach by his fifth grade math teacher,

He spends only one hour a week in the pool during the winter but in summer he spends many more hours at the Harrisburg public pool.

His scholarship signing will be 10 a.m., Saturday, at the high school.