With their season coming to an end and districts on the horizon, the Nixa High School speech and debate team has had a successful season. Having more people in the club than in the previous years opened up experiences of all kinds. 

   Junior Thomasina Brown, is on varsity and appreciates being able to display her work for tournaments. 

   “I love [the] tournaments and hanging out with all kinds of people,” Brown said. “If you’re going to join speech and debate,[tournaments] would be a good reason why. You get to compete and show off all the stuff you’ve been working on. All the people there are super cool and interesting.”

   Junior Angela Lee, also on varsity, admires the ability to express her emotions through her events. 

   “My favorite event is dramatic interpretation because I love screaming about taboo [topics], like sexual assault,” Lee said. 

   While this extracurricular might seem as just a fun club, it can help students in the future into their adulthood. 

   “[Speech and debate] is a very positive experience,” Brown said. “It’ll help build your resume and it’ll help build your public speaking skills. Especially if you do debate, it’ll help with research too.”

   While speech and debate might seem like an individual sport, it is also a team sport. 

   “My season has gone pretty well,” Lee said. “Meghana [Nakkanti] and I broke into the quarter finals twice. I’ve broken into semifinals a couple of times for both of my events, which are dramatic interpretation and original oratory.”

   Speech and debate can help with many critical skills of life like researching topics, but it mainly focuses on public speaking.

   “I used to not be able to do any presentations without getting super anxious,” Brown said. “I would get notes from teachers that I was too quiet or I talked too fast, but I don’t get that anymore [after being in speech and debate].”

   Senior Spencer Hadley, novice, shares an idea for winding down after a tournament. 

   “[To relax after] overnight tournaments, I go to the hotel and take a long, scalding hot shower to kind of cleanse my emotions,” Hadley said. “I treat it as a self-therapy session. I prioritize my own thoughts in the shower to really feel out my own emotions and how my day went, my performance and if I’m at peace or not.”