Fair Grove Speakers Take Their Spot in Nationals

Fair Grove attended Ozark Districts on March 9-11th for the National Speech and Debate Association. 

The Fair Grove team competed in several categories, including Humorous Interpretation, Dramatic Interpretation, Informative Speaking, Duo Interpretation, Program of Oral Interpretation, and Original Oratory. This was the first district competition that Fair Grove had participated in since the welcoming of the new Speech and Debate teacher, Leroy Barker. 

Barker said, “I have been to districts as an assistant coach and a judge in the past, but I have never had a team compete with me as the head coach. I know this team has had some success at districts in the past, and I hoped they would be able to surpass that this year.” A few National Qualifiers at this event were Kristopher Hunter (12), Nico Jenkins (11), and Cooper Zumwalt (12).

“These students have collectively invested hundreds of hours in their competition this year. They competed in front of over 100 different judges in eight different cities around the state. They have used the feedback from every competition to hone their performances into the highly competitive works they are today,” Barker described, sharing that he was pleased with the performance of this year’s team.

Hunter previously qualified for nationals placement two years ago, and this year he was partnered with Jenkins. Jenkins competed nationally online last year and earned a fifth place Poetry Reading award. Following their first place in the Duo Interpretation at districts, the pair will be competing at the National Tournament this June. 

Zumwalt qualified last year through a secondary qualifying tournament to compete at Nationals. This year he placed first in Informative Speaking and will also be competing at the June National Tournament.

“My piece that I qualified in is about a guy who is suffering from the mental disorder schizophrenia. I play the character with the disease, and Nico plays the voices in my head telling me to do crazy things. This piece is based on the author’s true life events. We cut it from a book called, ‘The Day the Voices Stopped,’ by Ken Steele and Claire Berman,” Hunter explained. 

Finally, he added, “Emotions I had to learn while getting into this character were a lot! I’m more of a dramatic actor and this piece is extremely dramatic. However, I had to learn different facials as I was scared and confused about what’s going on.”

Jenkins said, “Considering that Kris and I got first place as a duo for the first time in Fair Grove Speech history, and we qualified for nationals I feel really good about our performance. The final round was especially memorable to me because we were the last competitors to perform and I could really see all of the emotion on the judge’s faces.”