Just like basketball players memorize specific plays or wrestlers use muscle memory to execute a move, speech is another winter activity that involves a lot of memorization and practice for students to perform their very best. This year, the speech team did just that, putting in countless hours and commitment to perfect their events.
“I wanted to have a bigger team that was very dedicated, especially when it came to practice. I feel like that was a goal that we accomplished,” head speech coach Alyssa Hansen said. “We wanted to start sooner and get scripts in kids’ hands earlier, which is also something we accomplished.”
One person whose hard work and dedication showed throughout the season was senior Clark Cogdill. Cogdill competed in two events: humorous prose and oral interpretation of drama (OID) with junior Carson Jurey and seniors Tannen Honke, AJ Arensberg and Drew Krajicek.
“My hope for the speech season was to make state. My other one was to be much better than I was last year,” Cogdill said. “There was a streak for a moment where I only got first and second place for seven weeks straight.”
Even with all the success he was having, Cogdill always looked for ways to improve.
“Every time I finished a meet, we would always look at the feedback from the judges off of ballots and see what they didn’t like or what I can improve on more,” Cogdill said. “Me and my coach, Mrs. Hansen, then went in and fixed that and tried to make it better. My speech did improve drastically throughout the season as it went on.”
Although Cogdill fell short of making it to state with a fourth place finish at districts, he feels satisfied with the way his career ended.
“I placed at every meet and ended up not making state, so that was very disappointing, but overall, it was a really great season and definitely my best,” Cogdill said.
Another upperclassman who ended their season on a strong note was junior Maddie Fenn, who did a persuasive speech and a duet with junior Lexi Bisaillon. The duet was about taking a driving test and the journey with an insane driving instructor.
“I think I improved throughout the season with my acting in the duet because at first, I was really nervous that I look really stupid because I’m pretending to drive, and there’s obviously not a car in sight,” Fenn said. “Then I realized everyone else was doing the same thing…and I eventually got comfortable with it. With my persuasive, I think I improved with my energy. I got more engaging with the audience.”
Although Fenn didn’t qualify for state, she still had a great season with highlights to look back on.
“The most memorable part of the season for me was conference because me and Lexi both agree that it was our best performance ever for our duet,” Fenn said.
Besides having students with years of experience under their belt, the speech team also had people who went out for the very first time. Senior Britney Zeleny was one of 17 of these first-time speech competitors.
“I did speech for the first time this year, and it went much better than I thought,” Zeleny said. “I performed in an OID with Gabi (Tederman), Mylee (Tichota), Emmy (Tederman) and Allison (Kirchmann) and had so much fun. It is something I wish I would’ve done since freshman year.”
Seeing the new members have a great experience and the returning members continue to improve, Hansen is proud of the team’s overall performance, despite not sending anyone to state this year.
“We were extremely successful during the regular season. We had someone qualify for finals at every meet we attended, which is something that we haven’t done since I’ve been at Yutan,” Hansen said. “Everyone got better and stronger as competitors.”
While the team members were always striving for medals, they also realized the season was more about having fun.
“What I enjoy most about [speech] is just getting up and attempting to make people laugh because sometimes it works,” Cogdill said. “It’s sometimes not fun in the moment, but it’s really fun in the end because you accomplished something out of your comfort zone, and you kind of consumed yourself in a realm where not a lot of people usually step in.”
