News : Barker coaching Linn-Mar students to the same success she found in speech, drama

'She shepherded us to success,' says LMHS freshman Henry Morey of speech coach Mandy Barker.

Mandy Barker's mime, 'Meeting Mr. Right,' won the top honor in IHSSA in 2004, her senior year.

Mrs. Barker with her LMHS frehsman cast of 'Attack of the Zombies."

Henry Morey's mime was entitled 'Blast from the Past.' Mandy Barker is his coach at LMHS.

(Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of stories about former Vinton-Shellsburg performers and athletes who are now teaching and coaching the same activities in which they participated as VSHS students a few years ago.)

As a Vinton-Shellsburg High School senior, Mandy (Peterson) Barker won the top honor in all of Iowa for her solo mime act (entitled “Preparing for Mr. Perfect”) at the Iowa High School State Speech contest in 2004. Now in her first year of teaching and coaching drama at Linn-Mar High School, Barker is helping some of her protégées find the same confidence and success that she experienced.

In her first year at LMHS, Mrs. Barker, as she is known to the students, directed the fall play (“Attack of the Zombies”) and has begun work on the winter play. She coached group and solo mime participants for the speech contests.

“My favorite part of coaching speech and drama is seeing the improvement in the kids from the very beginning to their final performances,” says Barker.

One of her best memories happened during opening night of the freshman play.

“It was my 30th birthday – I was not looking forward to turning 30 – and the students surprised me at the beginning of the show,” recalls Barker. “They told the audience that I was turning 25, and they had everyone sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me.”

Another favorite part of coaching drama, says Barker, is helping student find talent they did not realize they possess.

One of the young actors who has learned that lesson from Mrs. Barker is LMHS freshman Henry Morray. In his first year of high school and his first attempt at drama, Henry earned the lead role in the freshman play and later went on to advance to State with his solo mime.

“Henry is a great kid with a ton of talent,” says Barker. “He just didn’t know it until he tried!”

We asked Henry to share a couple sentences about Mrs. Barker, but he says describing her impact takes way more words than that.

“During my freshman year I had my first taste of the high school acting experience. That same year would be Mrs. Barker's first time directing. I had my expectations exceeded – not not only did we have an insanely fun cast and tech crew, but to put the icing on the cake, we had a brilliant and diligent director who always made things interesting by giving life to the stage,” Henry said.

Mrs. Barker, he said, helped the students to have confidence in what they could do on stage.

“Whether through our attempted rapping, wild dancing, or joyful singing, it all amplified our performing skills through articulation, improvisation, emotion and more in the process of building us up into greater actors,” Henry adds.

When opening night arrived, he says, it was time for the freshman cast of Attack of the Zombies to deliver.

“And, oh, did we deliver, it was a hit!” Henry recalls. “The audience was completely engrossed and they loved and laughed at every bit of it.”

The birthday song for Mrs. Barker was the best part of the show, he adds.

Later in the school year, inspired by the success he found in acting, Henry decided to try another performing first.

“I joined Contest Speech with gusto,” he says. “Once again I had the privilege of working with Mrs. Barker, but now as my coach for mime. Through a series of successes and failures we always found ourselves going back to the drawing board. I came to notice that Mrs. Barker always works with her heart on her sleeve so I began to do the same. With a new work ethic I was optimistic to continue our adventure together as we went from school stage to Districts and to become the only freshman team to make it to State with our mime work of art. We called it “Blast from The Past.”

Henry said the doing the play and mime was “the most fun I had all year.”

“Mrs. Barker cemented my passion for speech and acting,” he says, adding a few more words of praise and thanks. “She started out as my director, became my coach, and ended up as my friend. Mrs. Barker may always say she just yelled at us and we did all the work, but we know better. She shepherded us to success.”

Linn-Mar administrators have been so thrilled with the success of the speech and drama teams that they have asked Barker to coach the LMHS JV pom team. But, she says, the drama projects keep her too busy for that. Barker’s full-time job at Linn-Mar is as high school counselor.