ABOVE: Members of the Fairmont Speech Team who are headed to state. First row, from left: Erik Walker, Zoey Tasseff, Dominick Lund-May, Isaac Thomas, Alayna Haefner, Grace Simpson, Oliver Thedens, Kathleen Walker. Second row, from left: Michelle Esquivel, Levi Loughmiller, Cooper Gudahl, Leon Yang, Allie Streit, Belinda Lutterman, Annie Reyelts, Evan Reyelts. Not Pictured: Miles Duffey. Submitted photo.

FAIRMONT – Continuing to hit their goal of double digits, Fairmont Speech is riding momentum from a section group championship win into this weekend’s State competition.

Fairmont will be competing on April 25 in Shakopee. They will be competing all day, but Speech Coach Kathleen Walker said it’s best to get there by 9:45 a.m.

This year, 14 students qualified to take part. Walker said it works similarly to wrestling, where students compete individually and are scored as a team. Each student picks a specific discipline to compete in. These range from the humorous to the dramatic, and some have particular stipulations.

Michelle Esquivel is a Freshman in the Storytelling category. Her category requires her to memorize 15 stories, as the judges choose a different one each round. Esquivel has no knowledge of which story they will choose.

“They usually give us a theme to go off of,” she said. “This year it’s conflict, whether with the environment the character is in, or the character versus another character, whatever it is. It’s a little difficult because you try to stay on script. You’re not going to go word for word, you try to build off of it, and grab the attention of people.”

Senior Isaac Thomas had to change his script early in the season. His category is Humorous Interpretation, where they choose a piece to perform and fiddle with it throughout the year.

“The judges told me my script wasn’t the best,” Thomas said. “I decided to make the switch during the first quarter of the year. From there, it was more fine-tuning the characters that I have, their interactions with each other, how they sound, and their body movement. It’s more understanding your piece as a whole, rather than just small sections.”

This will be Thomas’s first and last state trip, as he started Speech his Junior year. While this finality can rattle nerves, Thomas has come to a different conclusion.

“I’m not feeling too stressed,” he said. “I’ve already exceeded what my expectations were going into the season. I’m feeling more confident than ever in my ability to speak, I feel like that’s an overall great thing that’s happened.”

For others, it took a little longer for the pieces to fall into place. Sophomore Allie Streit changed both her piece and category halfway through the season.

“Sometimes when you pick one, it doesn’t click right away,” she said. “You try to make it work, and it didn’t. Once I switched my category and piece, everything fell into place. It became a lot easier as the season went on.”

Even though this mid-season change has given her less time to hone her piece, she is confident and looking to improve on her 11th-place finish last year.

Competing in Speech for six years has been a big journey for Senior Grace Simpson. Nearing the end of this season, she is seeing positive signs of group success.

“Everyone’s been working hard,” Simpson said. “You can see that in people’s performances, the energy they bring is a lot more confident. Even when we do our warm-ups, it’s a ton of silly phrases. Those have gotten more loud and rambunctious because people have so much more energy and confidence.”

Simpson and her Duo Interpretation partner Olivia Thedens have been working on their script since January. While the focus is putting their best foot forward for State, Simpson and Thedens were two of five to qualify for the prestigious National Speech and Debate Association tournament in June. With limited opportunities left, Simpson said they’re looking to put everything out there.

“Doing a performance that we’re proud of,” she said. “Speech is a place for you to use your voice. The message of our piece is important to us and prevalent right now. Using our duo and our piece to spread the message and looking at it with a lot of excitement instead of sadness.”

For more information on the event schedule, streaming, and eventual results, visit https://www.mshsl.org/sports-and-activities/speech.