The speech team has already had a tremendous amount of success this year, with their seventh consecutive time winning the Wright County Speech Conference, among other victories. Megan Fritz, Sophia Vaughn, Jilian Dore, Natalie Cumming, Nathan Shultz, Wyatt Jones, Oscar Edwards-Hughes, Elaina Henderson, Jenna Theis, Megan Schoenzeit, Ashley Clemens, Carolyn Fritz, Tavo Moline, Jacob Muth, Emma Koltes, McKenzie Pearson, Charlotte Davie, Jacie Leibfried and Lexi Ostvig all placed first in their category at the conference.

The coaches for the team are Nicolle Berg, Juan De La Cruz, Erin Kerrigan, Julie McMerty, Whitney Magnuson, Tex Ostvig, Steve Ruedisili, Barb Shofner, Valerie Thies, Amanda Soczynski, Matt Smaron, Kenzie Shofner and Brooke Winston.

This year, many of the speech team members double or triple “enter,” which means that each member competes in an additional one or two event.

“I probably spend five plus hours every week working on my events. I’m in a drawing category that’s trickier because its timed out. I have to go right from there to my next event and sometimes it gets stressful. ” said junior double competitor Hannah Clink.

The Orono speech team blew their competition out of the water with a score of 174 compared to the second place team, Dassel-Cokato who scored a 67, at the Wright County Conference.

In order to help others understand speech team a little better, former speech team member Emma VandenEinde described the speech season as being like the track season. Each member of the team participates in an event on their own–occasionally with a partner–but for the most part on their own. The team travels together and bonds together, but when it comes to competing, it is all individual.

Speech is organized into two main categories; Public Address and Interpretive. Public Address can take the form of either a discussion or a speech. “P.A.” categories include Informative Speaking, Original Oratory and Discussion, among others. “Interp” is any of the acting categories. In these categories, speakers can take parts of poems, a script, or a book and make it their own through their own interpretation. Some Interpretive categories are Humor, Dramatic Duo, Serious Poetry Interpretation and Storytelling, according to the MSHSL Speech Rules & Policies manual.

“What I enjoy most about Speech Team is having an outlet to perform and get feedback,” junior Carolyn Fritz said.

The speech team had been relatively small in past years, until this year’s senior class got to seventh grade–the grade level that speech is made available to students. The seniors make up a huge portion of the speech team and will be missed in the next years.

“Saturdays start off bright and early at 5 a.m.  and lasts until 6 p.m. At a tournament, there are 3 rounds and then finals. For most of the day people are either in a round or talking to walls,” junior Natalie Bever said. “Talking to walls” is a common sight at tournaments, as students are practicing delivering their speeches.

For many speech members, the season is almost all year long. Like a sport, there is necessary training during the off season. There are many camps that offer speech practice while speech is not in season. St. Thomas offers a camp for students that they can stay at for either five or eight days. There are four different types of programs, according to the St. Thomas website.

They train nonstop for months, if not all year. It takes a lot of effort to get to where these competitors have gotten. Some participants have been competing since seventh grade. This is an activity that takes dedication and talent.

On Friday, March 8, the speech team competed in the National Speech Qualifying tournament. The team took third in the South Saint Paul tournament. Emma Koltes and Ashley Clemens will be representing Orono Speech Team at nationals in June.

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“I want to establish how honored I am to be going to Nationals. It is one of the greatest privileges I have received in my high school years. Orono competes in the Central District, apparently it is one of the most difficult and competitive in the country, which I totally believe. I saw so many amazing speeches this weekend in my category and it was honestly just a privilege to hear their messages and compete beside them. But to also succeed? This has meant the world to me, because there are so many insanely talented people that also could have qualified. Nationals has been my goal since last July, and I long ago lost count of the hours I’ve been putting into speech every week. To have my hard work and the message of my speech /mean something/ makes me emotional, to say the least. Overjoyed, shocked, and freaking pumped begins to describe my feelings right now. But I know now that the hardest part is far from over, that the work will not be done for a long time. And I’m okay with that, because I love working on speech, I love competing, and I love this activity. I owe speech so much, it has created wonderful and countless opportunities for me. But I owe even more to so many people who have supported me in this crazy, beautiful, unbelievable journey. My parents, my coaches, Mrs. McMerty, my friends, my teammates, and my competitors have all inspired me and guided me in so many ways, I would never have made it without them.”