Murray, NEB—The Speech team will kick off their season on Friday, December 20, at Lincoln Southwest. The coaches are looking forward to a successful season due to the achievements made by students last year. Several members of last year’s team will return.
Jessica Schlichtemeier is the head coach of the Speech team. Assisting coaches include Travis Grafe-Cline and Emily Rohlff.
“We have 10 events students compete in that fall into two basic categories: public address and interpretation,” Schlichtemeier informs. She goes on to describe the differences between public addresses and interpretation events that are involved in a speech competition. Speeches that the student speakers write are called public address speeches. This type of speech includes events like informative, persuasive, entertainment, and extemporaneous. Another category of speech is called interpretation, which are works of literature that students interpret. The events involved with interpretation include humorous, serious, poetry, duet acting, and Oral Interpretation of Drama. A recent addition by the Nebraska School Activities Association (NSAA) is Unified Speech and Unified Duet. These are available for any unified students who are interested. Conestoga had the first state champion Unified Duet in Class C1 last year.
“There really is a place for everyone in speech,” exclaims Schlichtemeier. The Conestoga speech coach has nothing to highlight yet about the upcoming season but she does encourage more students to join. Schlichtemeier states how the speech team is competitive and they could be more competitive in team sweepstakes if more people join. She would love to fill the district team with as many students as possible. Conestoga will be hosting districts this year. She hopes that the “home field advantage” will help the team bring home some hardware.
“The cool thing about speech is that students can build their own schedules,” adds Schlichtemeier. The coaches provide many meet opportunities while students pick which meets best fit their schdule. The speech schedules have somewhat changed this year due to NSAA’s “roll back year.” Competitions don’t start for the team until the second week of January. There are approximately two meets a week through January and February. Districts will take place on March 17 with State competition the week afterwards.
The goal for the coaches this year is that they want students to attend at least six meets, but they can compete in as many as 12 before districts. Schlichtemeier shares her excitement for the many bid opportunities at competitions for National Individual Events Tournament of Champions (NIETOC). If students place high at those particular meets, then they earn a bid to the national tournament. They must earn two bids in order to qualify for nationals. This year’s nationals are at Liberty North High School in Kansas City.
“Nationals will allow seniors to go out on a high note!” Schlichtemeier states.
