Minnesota Speech Competition

Susan loves High School Speech. She participated in it as a student, with many trophies, plaques, and ribbons to show for her efforts and then taught it as an instructor and coach. So it was only natural for her to sign up to be a judge once she moved here to Minnesota. Yesterday, she had her first meet and I drove along with to give her support. It turned out good that I went, too, because they were short assistants and so I was able to help her time the performances.

Minnesota has 13 categories of competition, from creative expression to original oratory. Each student presents their speech with other contestants from the same category to three separate judges over three rounds. Because of the large amount of students participating, each of the categories had multiple competitions taking place at the same time. Susan judged a different category for each of the three rounds and was also assigned one for the finals.

The first category Susan covered was Extemporaneous Speaking. Those of you who have participated in high school speech competitions, will probably know exactly how that works, but here's a brief explanation for the rest of you. The school chose fifteen different topics and provided research material for each of the fifteen. Basically, each student selected a topic randomly and then had a half hour to develop a speech based on their experience and the material available in the research bin. Before the competition, each student was assigned a time to perform their speech and the times were staggered so that no student would have more than the allotted thirty minutes to undertake their research. As you can imagine, all of the speeches were kind of choppy but it was still very easy to tell which of the students had received quality coaching and which had not.

The second category that Susan covered was Great Speeches. The students had to choose a famous speech from history and in eight minutes, explain why that speech could be considered great. The students dissected speeches from FDR, Hilary Clinton, Patrick Henry, Charles Darrow, and others. I enjoyed this segment of the program very much and learned a bit both about the mechanics of speech development and more than a little history.

The third category that Susan covered was Dramatic Interpretation. The students had to choose a play and after a brief introduction on what the play meant to them, perform a section of it. They had eight minutes. This was the category that had the widest divergence of talent and quality. I enjoyed it very much but all of the contestants except one, chose to do a monologue scene. I was kind of hoping to see different characters but I did have a good time watching the performances and two of them, especially, left me awed.

After each of the three rounds, Susan had to turn in her scores to the tabulation table. I can't remember the name of the guy in charge of tabbing, but he used one of my jokes when we first met him and it gave Susan and I both quite a chuckle. Not that the joke is that funny, mind you, but it's kind of cheesy and I'd never heard anyone else do it before.

Once the rounds were completed, lunch of Sloppy Joes and baked beans was supplied to the judges and they let me take part as well. Then we had to play a waiting game. Not all of the judges would be needed for the final round and since a judge couldn't oversee an event where a student from the same school made it to the finals in that category, they had to wait for the tabulation to be completed before they could assign the judges. Each of the thirteen events was tabulated separately and then the judges for that category chosen and hung on the wall of the judges lounge.

By the time we finished eating, the results for four of the categories had been determined. Susan wasn't a judge for any of those. The rest of the categories trickled in, about one every five minutes or so. She wasn't on the fifth or the sixth. She wasn't on the seventh, eighth, ninth, or tenth either. The eleventh didn't need her. Nor the twelfth. Then they hung the final sheet. And sure enough, there was N6, Susan's judging code.

The category was OO (Original Oratory) and Susan was excited about it because it was the very same category that her daughter, Rachael, competed at back when she was in school. I'm not sure exactly what they judge on when it comes to this category, but all of the eight speeches were good. My favorite was an upbeat talk about the importance of tolerance. There was one about human trafficking, one about the prevalence of sexual themes in children's advertising, one about the importance of growing food at home, and four others ranging from politics to positive thinking. Once the judging was complete and the scores turned in for tabulation, we headed out to the parking lot for the hour drive back home. We could have stayed around another hour to see the award ceremony but we were both beat and since this was Susan's first time judging for Rochester John Marshall, we didn't know any of the students who were competing.

Even though I was little more than a spectator, I had a lot of fun. I loved seeing Susan do what she excels at and I was so proud of her as I glanced over her shoulder and read the comments she made on the various critique sheets. Her caring and kindness showed through brightly. No matter how good or bad the performance was, she always found at least one positive thing to mention about each speech. She's a true treasure and I'm so glad I spent my Saturday watching her shine.