Say cheers to speech districts! What does the speech team do, you may ask? There are three different speech event categories: Interpretive Events, Acting Events, and Speaking Events. This year speech districts were held in Sidney on March 14.

Interpretive Events consist of Serious Prose, Humorous Prose, and Poetry. Serious Prose is under ten minutes and is an oral interpretation by expressive reading of a section of a story, play, etc. These performances are normally on a serious topic with multiple characters. Humorous Prose is also under ten minutes and is oral interpretation by expressive reading of a section of a story, play, etc. Usually of a humorous topic with multiple characters. Poetry is only six to eight minutes. One must create a program of poems with a common author or a common theme that’s usually connected with transitions written by the speaker, or one long poem. This event is presented with a script.

Acting Events consist of Duet Acting and OID (oral interpretation of drama). Duet acting is under twelve minutes. Two students perform a memorized scene or sequence of a play using props consisting of only a table and two chairs. This act may be from a serious or humorous script. OID must be performed under fifteen minutes. Its similar to a reader’s theater or a short play with minimal movement and is performed by a group of three to five people with a script.

Last, but certainly not least, speaking events. Speaking events consist of Informative, Persuasive, Extemporaneous, and Entertainment. Informative is under eight minutes and is when a person presents a speech that informs the audience about a topic, preferably using visual aids like posters. Persuasive is under ten minutes and is a speech given to support one side of a controversial issue. Extemporaneous is five to seven minutes with one hour prep time. One must write a speech, in the allotted time, about the drawn topic concerning current public events. They must find articles ahead of time to have in prepared files.Then they deliver it with or without a note card. Finally, entertainment which is under eight minutes. A person must write and deliver a speech about an entertaining topic and they may use visual aids and/or props.

Grace Tolstedt, a senior at Alliance High School, has been a part of the speech team for all four years of high school. As districts was right around the corner, Grace wanted the team to at least make finals in districts. “I’m sad, it’s really different than anything else I do. I’m going to miss it, but public speaking is basically in everything so it won’t be to far away.” states Grace about this being her last year of AHS speech. Grace wants to keep encouraging people to try out speech and make them realize that it isn’t as scary as people think it is.

The coach of the speech team is Mrs. Green. She has coached speech for sixteen years. This year there are 7 students that participate on the speech team. These students consisted of Grace Tolstedt, Darian Wilson, Tristan Bleisch, Saphina Achi, Mackenzie Broderick, and Bailey Alwin. Mrs. Green explained what she might expect at this year’s districts and she stated, “Who knows? We’re just going to go do our best and have fun. I have no idea what to expect, it’s different every year. It depends on the judge, it depends on the competitors that the judges have in each room, and it just depends on how well they do.” Mrs. Green hopes to place in the finals just as Grace does.

The speech team is done for the year and they had a great season. Speech districts is now over with and the Alliance Speech Team did not make it to finals, but they did an amazing job! All of the contenders were close in ranking but didn’t quite make it. Better luck next year speech team!