Fair Grove’s Speech and Debate Team’s season started October 12th, with one of their biggest tournaments at Hillcrest High School. They placed 2nd out of 15 schools.

Cooper Zumwalt, a freshman at Fair Grove, is excited for his first season in high school. While he has prepared during school hours, he’s spent numerous days after school to work with his coach, Mrs. Amy Holland. Although his transition from Middle School speech to High School has been different, such as when the seasons start, the level of competition, and the variety of events. “However, Mrs. Champion [the Middle School speech coach] did a fantastic job getting us prepared for High School competition, and Mrs. Holland has been great to work with this year,” Zumwalt stated. Zumwalt had a great start to the season while placing first in Program of Oral Interpretation, then fifth in Humorous Interpretation.

Georgia Whalley (12) performs in Prose reading, Dramatic Interpretation, Program of Oral Interpretation, and Poetry. Her pieces are meaningful, and cover difficult topics. She put in her time over the summer to chose her pieces and worked to memorized. To make herself better, Whalley explained, “[I] look through my old judges sheets to see what the majority of judges like and don’t like.” Her favorite part of the season is seeing her speech friends and competing. Her advice for the rest of the season for underclassmen is “…practice as much as you can…perform for your cats, your dogs, your cows just perform all the time…”

Holland believes, “[Fair Grove] Speech and Debate team is composed of a strong group of seniors who have performed well in the past and have started off the season strong.” She welcomes anyone who wants to improve their public speaking to join the speech team. The Fair Grove Speech and Debate Team meets during 8th hour and after school.