John O'Brien
Speech team posing in front Waffle House
South Dakota State swept the competition with 94 points on Jan. 24 and 122 points Jan. 25. SMSU speech team members who placed are Brooke Struthers in After Dinner Speaking; Mal Bingen in Dramatic Interpretation; Ameila Reid and Katrina Timm in Duo Interpretation, and Ameila Reid in Prose Interpretation. SMSU’s Amelia Reid also placed in a second Prose Interpretation event.
Approximately 70 students from universities in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and South Dakota competed. SMSU’s speech coach and professor of communications Ben Walker said, “there was a smaller turnout than usual.”
Though both meets were small, competition was stiff. In speech and forensics meets, students compete both as a team and individually.
SMSU’s speech/forensics coach Walker explained that competitors “earn speaker points for how well they perform their individual speeches. These points are added to determine which team ends up winning the meet.”
Amelia Reid, who got into finals for prose on the second day of competition, told me, “I feel very confident about my script, and I think I’m going to final.” When someone final they have a chance to get an award for themselves and get points for their team.
Since it was a two-day event there were two different finals and two days of awards. Someone that spoke about having a kid during the Chernobyl disaster that died made many people cry. After all of the speakers were done speaking the three judges decided who won the category. After finals were over it was time for awards.
The highest first year speaker in the category, got a pony on a small dowel as a reward. Once they got through all the categories on Valley Forensics League (VFL) three they gave out team sweepstakes. Team sweepstakes is the teams’ points, and the top three teams got them, and they are a stuffed pony because SMSU was hosting.
Once the awards for VFL three went on to VFL four. The same process for individual and team awards played out. Some people got more ponies on a stick than others, one competitor from Minnesota State Mankato got six ponies.
Ben Walker said, “They’re going to have a van full of ponies.” At with all the awards done the competition was over. The next speech meet will be Feb. 22 at the University of Minnesota.