Due to weather concerns, sponsors cancelled the IUPUC/Ivy Tech Invitational, previously scheduled for Jan. 25. Speech team co-sponsor Anna Kaiser said she thinks the next scheduled meet, the Speedway 500 on Feb. 8, will not be cancelled due to weather.

“The weather in Columbus was predicted to be really bad,” she said. “In fact, I read online that Columbus High School cancelled their SATs, so I think the weather was worse down there than it was up here. So we didn’t want to risk it.”

According to Kaiser, the hazardous driving conditions affecting students’ safety has been a concern this season.

“The weekend before, we were in Lafayette, and coming back was — I don’t want to say it was scary — but the roads were really bad and we didn’t want to risk students riding the bus, getting stuck somewhere, a bus breaking down, anything like that,” she said. “We thought it would be better just to cancel it and hopefully make up a meet sometime in February.”

Senior Elaina Xiong said, “I’m very disappointed about not being able to go to the Columbus speech meet, because I was excited to compete with new people who I have never competed against before. But I’m glad that I didn’t have to wake up that early.”

Xiong said she is going to the Speedway 500 tournament and plans to compete in Dramatic Interpretation with the piece “The Gift of Tongues.”

According to Kaiser, she will be driving to the Speedway 500 tournament.

“I’m actually going to get licensed to drive the minibus myself sometime this week,” she said. “If the weather is bad, we’ll see if a bus driver can take us. If not, I’ll drive.”

Kaiser said speech team co-sponsor Jacleen Joiner will be joining her as judge at the tournament.

“We always judge at the meets we go to, and one of our students’ fathers has been helping us out judging,” she said. “We’re starting to catch on to what judges should look for, and giving better feedback. There are some times when I want to go and watch our students participate, but because we’re judging we can’t be two places at once.”