MARSHALL - For 12 years, some of the best high school speech competitors in the Midwest have been attending the Schwan's Speech Spectacular in Marshall. While outstanding students from across the country were still in attendance for the first day of the event Friday afternoon, a new addition to the prestigious tournament garnered a lot of attention.
For the first time in the Spectacular history, a novice division was made available to students. Of the 860 entries at this year's tournament, nearly 300 are participating as novices.
"The novice division has certainly been popular among the coaches," Marshall High School head speech coach Rick Purrington said. "They have brought more entries, and that's why our tournament is larger than it's been in the past. Coaches feel like they can bring their novices here now, because in the past, I think many times they would just leave their novices home or send them to a different tournament which maybe isn't as competitive so that their novices aren't so intimidated the first time around."
Joni Anker, Eagan High School head speech coach, brings more kids to the Spectacular than anyone else. The school has been coming to the MHS-hosted event since the first year.
"I like that it's a two-day tournament, so the kids get a lot of rounds," Anker said. "They get to see some really good stuff because the competition is really stiff at the break rounds. The competition is amazing. The tournament draws some of the top teams across the nation."
Besides Minnesota, teams also traveled from Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota and Colorado to attend. Purrington pointed out that each competitor will have four rounds of competition on Friday and up to four rounds today. Everyone will compete in the fifth round of competition early this morning. Then, the varsity division breaks down to the top 24 in each of the 13 categories, followed by the semifinal round consisting of the top 12 and eventually the finals, which includes the top six competitors.
After the five preliminary rounds, the novice division will immediately break down to the final six or seven finalists in each of the 10 categories.
"Now, I think a lot of coaches feel like they can bring all their kids here and take part in an exciting atmosphere with a lot of rounds offered to them," Purrington said. "At the same time, they'll see other competitors who are also on-script, where the speeches aren't quite memorized at this point in time."
Of the 93 students Eagan brought this year, 43 are competing in the novice division.
"I love it for novices because they have five rounds," Anker said. "Most tournaments have three. And if they don't break, then they can go watch the varsity kids. I love the novice division because those kids are so young and to put them up against the varsity at the first tournament is rough. Yeah, they get to see good stuff, but they don't have a chance. The novice division is so nice for them."
Junior Marlen Cervantes, one of 70 students on the MHS speech team, competed in original oratory in the novice division.
"I'm pretty nervous because this is my first year," Cervantes said. "I think I have it memorized, but I'm not sure. I like being in the novice division because the people that are going to be in my rounds are probably as nervous as I am. It's also their first time in the category."
Cervantes' speech is about a problem in society, and she attempts to persuade people to think the way she does.
"I'm writing on brightsidedness like how we're taught since early childhood to think positively and how that affects us because we don't plan for the worst," she said. "It's supposed to be between eight to 10 minutes long."
In researching the problem and gathering information to support her speech, Cervantes found a case in Minnesota, where a fire broke out and the smoke detectors weren't operative.
"Maybe if the worst-case scenario would have been considered, things would have been different," she said. "Many people don't think about it. But it's the little things that can save us."
Purrington said that once the first round gets going, everything seems to settle down. Despite coordinating a massive amount of rooms for use at MHS and Southwest Minnesota State University, there was only a couple of room issues, he said. The only other challenge was finding enough judges.
"We're about three judges short for each round today," Purrington said. "When a tournament gets to this size, you do scramble a little bit. Whenever you start separating kids into sections, then you need more judges. We probably needed 30 more judges this year than in the past. But once we get started, everything seems to run like clockwork after that."
Eric Deutz, a MHS senior, is competing at the Spectacular for the first time, having been involved in One Act Play competition during the same weekend for the past few years.
"It's weird that I'm a senior and I've never competed here before, so it's just a thrill to finally be able to do it," Deutz said. "Just the vast number of people here, it's neat. I love it."
Deutz is double-entered in the Spectacular, in serious drama and creative expression.
"My serious drama piece is about a Jewish man who falls in love with the daughter of a Nazi, so they have conflict there," he said. "The creative expression, I wrote myself. It's about a kid who takes a DNA test and finds out his parents aren't his real birth parents, and his parents didn't know it either. It's a switched at birth thing."
MHS senior Meghan Carmody also has two categories, informative and poetry.
"My informative, I just finished writing it two weeks ago, so I'm still working on memorization," Carmody said. "On our team, our head coach has a rule that we're not allowed to use a script if we're on varsity. So I can't use a script. But it pushes us to work harder during this competition."
As a senior this year, Carmody has even high hopes for her season. Like every single competitor, controlling her nerves is one of the keys to success.
"Last year, I broke into section finals, so I really want to do well this year and go to state," Carmody said. "I like that there are so many people here, but it's really nerve-wracking because it's like 'oh my gosh, there are so many good people here.'"
