ABOVE: Last Friday Fairmont Speech had 10 state speech qualifiers who placed in the top three of their individual speech category. From row, from left: junior Solveig Senf, senior Eleanor Hamlet, senior Vanessa Schultze, senior Kara Fischer, senior Kaycie Brookens, junior Lilly Laven. Second row, from left: coach Erik Walker, freshman Dominick Lund-May, sophomore Abi Peyman, sophomore Sydney Blomster, freshman Grace Simpson, and coach Kathleen Walker. Not Pictured: coach Miles Duffey.

FAIRMONT– Last Friday at the section 2A speech meet in Janesville, Fairmont’s team not only won the tournament, but had 10 of its 24 competing members advance to the state competition. The state tournament will take place on April 23 at Eastview High School in Apple Valley.

Toward the end of last month, the team, which is made up of about 45 students grades 7 through 12, competed at the Big South competition in Marshall. Coach Kathleen Walker said they hadn’t participated in that tournament since 2018 because in 2019 it was cancelled due to weather and the last two years it was cancelled due to Covid.

“We were at Marshall and all of the Big South conference coaches were like, ‘we’re finally here, together.’ It was really special to finally have that,” said Kathleen.

On March 26, Fairmont hosted the Fairmont Finale, which is the last invitational. Twenty-six schools attended, which Kathleen said is the biggest tournament she and co-coach Erik walker have hosted in their seven years of coaching.

“It was nice to see the commons full of speech kids,” said Erik.

Two days after that, Fairmont High School also hosted the subsection 2A south speech tournament in which eight schools participated in. Twenty-four students advanced to sections at that meet.

“We won that one pretty handily,” said coach Miles Duffey.

The next week, April 2, there was no meet, which Kathleen said is rare.

“We didn’t know what to do with ourselves. For speech coaches to have a Saturday off during speech season is very rare,” she said with a laugh.

On Friday, April 8, Fairmont ended up winning the section 2A team championship with 142 points. St. Clair was in 2nd place with 66 points. The Fairmont Speech team has been the section 2A champion for five years running, with the exception of 2020 when the tournament was not held.

Ten students advanced to state at sections, which Kathleen said is about the typical number Fairmont sends to state speech.

“It’s great to move on anyone to state,” she said.

The ten advancing are senior Vanessa Schultze in Creative; junior Solveig Senf in Discussion; senior Eleanor Hamlet in Great Speeches; junior Lilly Laven in Informative Speaking; sophomore Abi Peyman in Original Oratory; freshman Dominick Lund-May in Extemporaneous Speaking; senior Kara Fischer in Drama; sophomore Sydney Blomster in Informative; freshman Grace Simpson in Storytelling; senior Kaycie Brookens in Prose.

“Twenty-four competed and 18 got medals. That’s so awesome, almost the whole team did great at sections and ten advanced to state,” Kathleen said.

Fairmont has a long and consistent history of sending speech students to state.

Duffey, who is a 2007 Fairmont High School graduate, was also a stand-out speech student who went to state in his 8th through 12th grade years. He shared what it’s like coming back this year to help coach the team.

“It’s surreal. The experience that I had is useful with what I can bring to the team today,” Duffey said.

He said he has enjoyed being able to give the best advice to students that he can. After competing as a high schooler, Duffey said he left the speech world so he’s experienced a gap.

“Coming back to it brings a refreshing look on it. I can see how much it benefits students across the board in terms of their communication skills and how those basic skills can transfer later in life,” Duffey said.

“He really is good at demonstrating to students how to perform something. I admire that. I’ve learned a lot from Miles. He’s very humble so I’ll say it: he’s amazing,” said Kathleen.

She added that what people don’t see is all of the behind the scenes work that the coaches do when they work with students on preparing their speeches.

“Sometimes you go into a room for hours and work on one 30-second part of your piece,” she said.

At the state competition, each student will compete among the top 24 individuals in their category. Students from all eight class A sections in the state will compete in the tournament.

“We have high hopes for our kids to get into the top eight of their categories and earn a state medal. Last year we had six medalists,” Kathleen said.

Duffey added that while the medals are nice, it’s also about the memories made.

“The medals are a little piece that unlocks a lot of memories in your mind. There’s depth to it,” he said.

While the speech season is done for the students who are not going on to state, Kathleen said that every senior they brought to sections is going to state.

Even after state, the speech season will continue for two students– Kara Fischer and Kaycie Brookens– both of whom will compete at the National Speech and Debate Tournament in June in Louisville, KY.