Nixa’s speech and debate team took five students to state on April 25 and a select few will travel to nationals May 20 to 25. These students had prepared for several months.
Memorization is a large factor in multiple events.
“I do informative speaking and oratory,” sophomore Zoiya Okumu said. “So to prepare for that, I would write a 10 minute speech for each one on a topic that I choose. Then I just practice and practice and practice every day until it’s fully memorized, because you have to have both of them fully memorized, no notes.”
Okumu said that practicing speeches takes a lot of work, but after having it memorized, the speech comes naturally. Despite the extensive practice, she still faces challenges.
“I get a lot of nerves when I speak in front of people, even though I’ve been doing it for like three years,” Okumu said. “Once I get up there, I just am confident in what I’m saying, and that’s really all that matters.”
Okumu said speech and debate not only includes debate and public address events, but also interpretation events.
“I feel like people don’t really see the theatrical side of speech and debate,” Okumu said. “Because that’s like half of the people who are doing Speech and Debate. Then there’s also other events that you don’t even need to have memorized.”
Freshman Shreyansh Nakkanti said there’s a bid in order to be involved in nationals. “In this bid, you put all your progress throughout the season… and how well you’ve done.” Nakkanti said. “ Say you got first place throughout the whole season, you’re more likely to get a bid to actually participate.”
National tournaments are unique experiences for speech and debate students. “ It means a lot to me to go, especially because it’s a national tournament. Nakkanti said. “I’m excited to go to new places and compete at a higher level and meet new people.”
There are multiple opportunities for students to get involved with speech and debate, such as the club and the class.
“I have a lot of kids that aren’t taking the class or took it once but can’t take it again,”
Jay Williamson, head coach of speech and debate said. “We meet usually once a week on Wednesdays and just try to check in with them because they’re all kind of working independently on their competition pieces and their debates, and all of that since they’re not in the class. “
Competitions can be very time consuming for students.
“Our competitions typically run on Fridays and Saturdays,” Williamson said. “So, in the afternoon on Friday, we’ll travel to the school that’s hosting and usually have four rounds of competition, two for speech and two for debate. So, we can finish up… around 9 o’clock or so on
Friday night sometimes it goes later. And then we come back Saturday morning, usually by about 8 a.m.”
Members of the team prepare in varying ways based on the requirements of the events.
“There’s a lot of preparation that goes into a competition,” freshman Ava Harvey said. “If I’m debating, I have to prepare my cases and all my extra evidence, so that’s like a two-week process, wanting it to be really, really good. But I also do radio speaking, and so you have to create your own script for that.”
Speech and debate offers a lot to students.
“They [other students] don’t realize how much fun it can be,” Williamson said. “[There’s] a lot of bonding that happens.”
