The Hastings Senior High School speech team has six people, Alondra Perez, Rebekah Evans, Savannah Born, Param Bhakta, and Conner Wademan. Photo courtesy of assistant coach Carissa.
Hastings Senior High School’s speech team was able to make it to state on March 15 at Kearney High School.
“From my previous years going to state, I was super excited to see speechers that I used to compete against virtually. It is just exciting to see everyone culminate in such a competitive, yet friendly environment,” junior Rebekah Evans said.
Speech is not a class, but an extracurricular activity taught outside of school.Throughout the year the students would set up a time where they would be able to meet with Ms. Thomas, who is mainly responsible for the speech team, and their two assistant coaches.
“I believe that in the next years to come speech should be taught as a class because it helps with many things, we all get along well, and Ms. Thomas pushes us to get better,” freshman Alondra Perez said.
State is usually like most competitions where they are set in rounds with about four to six people. After that there are two to three rounds plus finals. The participants compete individually, but their team gets “sweeps,” which are points that total each member’s scores from their rounds. However, there is Oral Interpretation of Drama (OID) which is a group event where they perform with four to five people from their team.
“Our district’s competition from previous years was the real set up for state. I practiced four times a week. Our speech team is filled with multi-extracurricular activities. It is important for speeches to be well rounded, so adapting to a tight schedule is the real training for state and competitions,” Evans said.
Some students believe that adding speech as a class would be beneficial for them to grow in numbers. Students in speech also want to show others that the speeches they give do not have to be boring, but they can include emotion and activism.
“I believe being on the speech team will help [me] in the future for many reasons. My first reason is with jobs, and in order to have a job you need to be able to speak with others,” Savannah Born said. “Secondly, it helps with class presentations, since I have joined speech I have done better on my presentations. It helps you become confident and professional, and it teaches you things to do and what not to do. Also, in general situations, where I feel that it has helped me speak in groups, talking to peers, and being more confident.”
