The Warsaw speech team hosted a home meet for the first time in years on Saturday, Feb. 20.

“I’m excited to host a meet because it gives us the opportunity to show off all of our hard work and how much the club has grown,” sophomore Hannah Chapman said.

Hosting a meet also allowed the speech program to make more money for future events and contests.

“Hosting a contest is great opportunity to give students a chance to compete.  We often go to other schools to compete, so it gives our students a chance to invite others to return the opportunity to others.  It also gives our school great exposure to our facilities and our community,” Speech Coach Katie Johnson said.

The meet included many different events/competitions: Dramatic Interpretation, Humorous Interpretation, extemporaneous speaking, Improvised Duet Acting, Prose, Poetry, Original Oratory, Original Works, Radio, Duet, and Storytelling. Different students participate in different events depending on which ones they enjoy.

“We had teachers, parents, and former WHS graduates volunteer to judge the events and help our speech team grow,” Speech Coach Nathan Hopkins said.

Students from Clinton, Cole Camp, Helias, Knob Noster, Lexington, Osage, Salisbury, Versailles, and Windsor attended the meet. The overall winner of the meet was Lexington High School.

The speech team is also preparing for a reader’s theater and a one-act play that they will be performing at districts which will be on March 5. The one act play is a serio-comedy called “Laundry and Bourbon” and the reader’s theater is a comedy called “How to Survive High School.” Both the reader’s theater and the one-act play are comedies. The reader’s theater is directed Hopkins and the one-act play is directed by Johnson. Including set crew, there are 15 students involved with the reader’s theater and one-act play.

Students enjoy being a part of speech for many reasons.

“ I like being in speech because it gives me the chance to feel confident even when I’m acting silly,”  freshman speech member Leeann Rozzel said.

“I enjoy being able to express myself and just have fun competing,” freshman speech member Autumn Long said.