Fair Grove’s Speech team is led by Coach Leroy Barker and assistant Coach Stacy Beller. The team has 14 students who are working on 30 different competition pieces for the season. The team will perform in roughly 10 competitions throughout the season.
The competitors will work on pieces for about four hours a day, performing and readjusting to the feedback given by their coaches to help prepare their pieces before the competition. This process can easily equal out to being 20 hours a week of performance.
Barker explained how being on the speech and debate team is not an easy commitment. “Many students will perform their piece, in front of others or by themselves, hundreds of times per year. I know some students report practicing a piece over 400 hundred times.”
Emma Pearson is a senior on the team and has been performing since her freshman year. She won first place for dramatic interpretation at their competition at Marion C. Early this year. Pearson explained that one of the most challenging parts is getting into districts. Pearson said, “When it comes to seeing who will make it to districts, people have to do really well to get that spot.”
Pearson also explained how being in speech and debate has had a positive impact on a lot of areas in her life and how she discovered her passion for performing pieces. “Speech and debate means so much to me. I used to be a quiet kid when I was younger, but when I was pushed to do speech and debate, it sparked something in me that wanted to compete and win.”
Pearson added, “Getting to discover something I love and watch my peers succeed too is the best thing of all.”
Barker explained anyone is welcome to join the team, however the more recommended path for joining is to also be in the speech and debate class taught by himself. “ I do continue to take students to tournaments that put in the effort to prepare pieces for competition that can not fit my class into their schedule but, if a tournament has entry limits, I prioritize entries for students that are in the class and need the event for a grade.”
The speech and debate team’s next competition will be held on December 13-14, 2024, in Bolivar, Missouri.
