The pressure is on as it is time to deliver the same oration to an audience for the third time that day, only this time, it is the final round of judging and the exhausted speaker must perform perfectly in order to secure the win for the team. This is what it’s like for Elkhorn High, junior Maureen Kubicek, when she competes on behalf of the school’s speech team.
According to Kubicek, the most difficult part of speech isn’t the preparation work or the performance anxiety, but the delivery of the finished product.
“The hardest part is actually the stamina,” Kubicek said, “It feels like another sport, as much as people probably don’t think it is.”
Since the speech team isn’t able to draw crowds such as extracurriculars like basketball or volleyball, Kubicek explained what the activity entails.
“There’s two types of events; there’s platform events, which are what most people think of as a persuasive or an informative speech, and then there’s interpretive events, which are more of a theatrical performance,” Kubicek said, “And then there’s lots of subcategories of different events you can do within each of those.”
With so many different areas to pursue, it can be difficult to pick just one. Kubicek participates in three of these unique categories.
“I am in humorous interpretation and oral interpretation of drama, which has a maximum of five people and minimum of three people,” Kubicek said, “And then a duet.”.
Kubicek said this is her third year on the speech team, and she remembers how she was first introduced to the activity.
“I did some speeches for 4-H, and that would be my grandpa who got us originally into it,” Kubicek said, “My brother and I did those and then I think I went to a few meetings and (speech coach Mrs.) Mosby was very good at talking people into doing it.”
Now that she has been participating since her freshman year, Kubicek said she has gained confidence in herself, and has made countless favorite memories from meets. She said she looks forward to the rest of her career on the speech team, and revealed some exciting goals on the personal level as well as for the good of the whole team.
“This year I think we have a really good chance of winning state as a group event,” Kubicek said. “I’d definitely say senior year I would really like to challenge nationals.”
