Speech team sponsor Jacleen Joiner works on her computer in preparation for upcoming District and State competitions. Joiner said she is most looking forward to these competitions to see the speech team members’ hard work pay off. “I enjoy seeing the improvement and confidence that students gain over the course of the year,” she said.

On Feb. 23, the speech team members competed in Sectionals at Westfield High School; now, they are working to perfect their pieces for District and State, according to speech team sponsor Jacleen Joiner. District will take place this Saturday and State will be on March 9. In order to practice, the speech team will meet this Thursday, Joiner said.

Mackenzie Misterka, speech team member and sophomore, said District is when judges can see “performances at their top quality.”

Additionally, Misterka said, “I hope we have some Nationals qualifiers at the District tournament, but it’s more important to me that everyone has a good time and feels like they’ve grown throughout this year’s season.”

 The speech team will celebrate the end of the season with a party on March 14, according to Joiner. She also said, since the season is coming to a close with only a few competitions left, the team is not implementing anything new; they are only working to perfect their pieces for upcoming competitions.

Looking ahead to next year, Misterka said she hopes the current speech team’s performance can inspire some new prospective speech team members.

“It feels amazing to deliver a speech and see the look in the audience’s eyes as the message really hits the,” she said. “I just really hope we can spark that great feeling in some new members soon.”