Last year, North Platte High School speech team members participated at National Qualifiers in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Three advanced (and one alternate), and had the opportunity to compete at Nationals in Birmingham, Alabama. Unfortunately, our speech team will not have the opportunity to compete this year.

Speech goes to multiple tournaments throughout the year, each tournament costing approximately $600-1000, with no more than 12 tournaments a year, not including districts and state. These tournaments are completely funded by students from running concession stands and hosting tournaments throughout the season.

This year, due to weather, one of the speech team’s major fundraisers (The Blue and Gold Speech Tournament), hosted at North Platte High, was cancelled. This tournament generally brings in the money to send students to National Qualifiers, which costs approximately $10,000.

Senior Hallie Malsbury, a team member who was an alternate for Nationals last year, is disappointed that the team does not get the opportunity to compete at Qualifiers this year. “It [not being able to compete] felt like a weight on my chest because last year I was inches away from making it and I thought this would be the redemption year,” she said.

Senior Jake French is also discouraged. “I think some of them are very upset because they didn’t get their shot, one more year might’ve been the year they could have qualified,” he said.
Speech coach David Cooper shares their discouragement. “It is a disappointment because we’ve gone for so many years but it was just a struggle this year with so much sickness and the weather,” he said.

It has been a tough speech season all around. “We didn’t even know if we could go to meets after that, because we lost our big fundraiser,” said Malsbury. However, outside of the struggles with sickness and weather, our speech team has been dominating the competition. “I don’t know if anyone realizes this, but we’ve won every meet we’ve gone to,” said Malsbury.

Overall, being involved in speech has affected many students’ lives. “It has made me a much more confident person. I kind of stopped caring what people think about me,” said French. Malsbury agrees.

“It was a way for me to have a voice in the craziness of high school,” she said, “it has given me a home away from home even on the worst days.”

National Qualifiers has been an opportunity that greatly affected our speakers in previous years. “It truly was something that I will always remember,” said Malsbury.