The 2016-2017 Fair Grove speech and debate team has been hard at work this season. They have already attended three tournaments, the first one being in Buffalo, the second in Marion C. Early, and lastly the Clever tournament. In the Clever tournament Fair Grove placed 2nd overall. Amy Holland, the speech and debate coach, comments, “Several students broke into finals at Marion C. Early but we did not advance into finals at Buffalo, we hope to take first place at Conference and we always hope to perform well at Districts.”
The team has been hard at work practicing in their events, “Amanda Orr has been very competitive with her Original Oratory(OO) about her sister Samantha,” Holland said. Amanda has placed 5th out of 44 entries in Marion C. Early in Poetry, 2nd place out of 32 people at Clever in Poetry, and 1st place out of 7 entries in OO also at Clever. “Our Improv teams; consisting of Owen Smith, Mark Cockcroft, Autumn Stuart, Eli Marlow, Tristin Cross and Kayla Hodges, have also been doing very well, with 2nd and 4th place finishes at the last tournament,” Holland added. Each member of the speech team is responsible for rehearsing their pieces on their own, then the team meets for practice after school. They perform for each other and critique one another’s performance.
Every performer has to find the best way of preparation works best for them. Eli Marlow (10) conveyed, “Preparing for tournaments is based mostly on the events you are entered in as an individual, I am triple entered which simply means I have the max events for competing.” Eli is entered in Prose, Improvisational Duet, and Duet Acting. Emma Hackett (10) said, “I prepare by reading over my lines and just keeping the memorization going even when I’m not performing.” Hackett performs in Dramatic Interpretation (DI), Duet Acting with Mark Cockroft, and Poetry. Owen Smith (11) is in Radio Speaking, “I look up news that was made within 24 hours, write them down on a Google document, and read over it multiple times while also timing myself.” Smith explained he also competes in Improv Duet along with Radio Speaking.