WAUSA – The Wausa High School speech team seeks to talk its way to a third-straight state title.
Wausa will kick off the 2024 speech season at 8 a.m. Jan. 27 in Hartington at the Hartington-Newcastle/Cedar Catholic Invitational.
Husband-and-wife duo Kyle and Samantha Stevens have been coaching the Wausa speech team since 2016.
“Mrs. Stevens and I are excited for this season,” Kyle said. “We have a good mix of experience and students that are new to the team. We are working hard to prepare for our first competitions. The practice schedule has been interrupted a bit by the weather, but the students are responding positively and doing the work they need to do to make good progress.”
Wausa has 24 participants on the team this year, making up 28 entries.
“I like this number of entries because it creates a good competitive balance on the team and allows for some flexibility for the students,” Kyle said. “We have some good senior leadership on the team this year with many state medalists and state qualifiers returning. Several students will be on the team for four years, and we have some really dedicated younger students who are emerging as great competitors and leaders.”
Wausa will once again be competing in Class D1. “We have been fortunate enough to win six state championships overall,” Kyle said. “We won state last year and in 2022.”
Growth is the overarching goal. “Our goals for the speech team every year are to simply take part in the process of growth as communicators, competitors and people,” Kyle said. “Each student on the speech team has different goals and expectations, and we both want to see them achieve those goals. Public speaking is hard. It can be intimidating and create fear. Watching students work hard and develop self-confidence while overcoming these obstacles is our main motivation. We want to help them define their own idea of success and then achieve that success.”
The husband-wife coaching duo “always look forward to the process” of speech season.
“We enjoy practice,” Kyle said. “We enjoy watching the kids developing skills and confidence. The students always work so hard, and it is fun to watch them go from the beginning of a season to the end and see how much they grow as people and as presenters. We really look forward to being in the moment and working toward goals.”
After Wausa travels to Hartington on Jan. 27 to open the speech season, it will hit the road to Wayne on Feb. 3 for the Wayne High/Wayne State Classic at 8 a.m.
Wausa will host its own speech invitational, which is set to start at 8 a.m. Feb. 10, and then head to Crofton High School on Feb. 17 for the Crofton Speech Invitational, which also has an 8 a.m. start time.
The Creighton Invitational will be the next competition for Wausa and start at 8 a.m. March 2 at Creighton High School. Two days later, Wausa will travel to Osmond High School for the Lewis and Clark Conference Speech Contest, which will start at 9 a.m.
Wausa will host the District D1-3 speech contest, which has been scheduled for 9 a.m. March 12. The 2024 Nebraska School Activities Association State Speech Championships for Class D1 are set to start at 8 a.m. March 22 at Kearney High School.
“Mrs. Stevens and I are really excited for the 2024 season,” Kyle said. “We are proud of the students, and we look forward to seeing what they will accomplish this year.”
