Just as North Platte High School’s speech season was preparing to kick into gear with the first speech meet, the coaches were replaced with science teacher Scott King soon after the competition. The speech team ultimately had to skip the tournament because of this unexpected change. 

The speech team had just lost both of their coaches and weren’t given any details as to why this happened. “The problem that I think a lot of us had, the alumni coaches, as well as the students, was [that] this was sort of dropped on us,” alumni coach Kaden Griesfeller said. Even though the team had worked countless hours on their speeches, they were not given the chance to represent North Platte. 

King had been set to take over without much warning or instruction. “After hearing about Mr. King’s credentials and having worked with him for the past couple of weeks, I really do like where he’s sort of taking the team right now,” Griesfeller said. 

Most of the team likes the way King has taken charge, however he may not be head coach again next year. “The NPHS team has an amazing amount of natural talent and the students are so much fun to work with,” King said, “It was a bit chaotic to step into the role of head coach and try to figure out what everyone is doing. Now we are moving forward and doing some pretty great things with the season.”

Getting a new coach in such a manner has been taxing on the team. “Everybody was really stressed,” Junior Reyna Wiezorek said. “Especially the officers, because they didn’t think this could actually happen.”

Despite the challenges the team has faced, they plan to have a successful season this year.  “I think the way that we’ve been handling it is the best that we could have,” Junior Joseph Roeder said. “I think the speech season will go pretty well.”