ABOVE: The Fairmont Speech team. Back row, from left: Grace Simpson, Oliver Thedens, Dominick Lund-May, Thomas Hamlet, Clark Hazard, Isaac Thomas. Middle row, from left: Adriana Leiding, Bella Coan, Georgia Werre, Michelle Esquivel, Gabbie Thoeny, Norah Heille, Zoey Tasseff, Evan Reyelts. From row, from left: Annie Reyelts, Allie Streit, Isaiah Lockwood, Abi Peyman, Sydney Blomster, Andrew Haefner, Bel Lutterman, Alayna Haefner. Not pictured: Levi Loughmiller, Leon Yang, Hailey McConnell, Sophia Streit, Dhanvi Patel, Bryanna Petschke, Kelsey Hunter. Submitted photo.

FAIRMONT– The Fairmont Speech team has had another prosperous beginning, taking first place at four of the five meets it’s attended so far this season.

“We started competing at the end of January and had two back to back weekends with just varsity members and a few novices that were ready in the cities at Rosemount and Apply Valley. The last few weekends we’ve been in Mankato,” said the team’s head coach, Kathleen Walker.

She’s been coaching for nine years now along with Erik Walker and Miles Duffey, who joined the team as a coach last season.

While the team’s been competing since the end of January, many of the students have been researching or preparing their speeches since December.

There are about 30 students on the team this year, grades 7 through 12. Of the 30 students, four are seniors and they double as the team’s captains.

“We do some pre-season interviews with all of our seniors and figure out what capacity they can bring to the team and find every year that we’re so lucky to have seniors that fill being leaders for young kids and helping with peer coaching and leading by example on the bus and at tournaments,” Kathleen said.

Sydney Blomster has been on the team since she was a seventh grader. While she originally started out in humorous, she found that she has enjoyed the informative category the most.

“I like it because I like writing my own speech and learning about something new and unique,” Blomster said.

This season her topic is on cleanliness.

Abi Peyman has also been a member of the speech team since seventh grade. She has dabbled in a few different categories including story telling, original oratory and great speeches, which is new to her.

“I’m really having fun with great speeches. It’s still a public address category and serious… but I can add a little drama and passion so it’s a fun mix of acting and excitement and I’m finding that I like that a lot,” Peyman said.

Andrew Haefner joined as a seventh grader doing discussion which looking back on, he said wasn’t the category for him. He has found his groove in extemporaneous speaking.

“It’s very unique. There are a set amount of questions and at the tournament you draw three and speak about a different one each round. It’s usually a question relating ton foreign policy,” Haefner said.

He enjoys the opportunity to keep up-to-date on current events and be aware of international topics.

Isaiah Lockwood joined a little later, as a ninth grader. He said that a few of his friends, including Heafner and junior team member, Dominick Lund-May, encouraged him to first join the school’s debate team and since he enjoyed the speaking part of that, he later joined the speech team and started out in the extemporaneous speaking category.

“I found that I really liked the speech-y part of it– preparing a seven minute speech in 30 minutes and speaking– but I didn’t like the research portion as much,” Lockwood said.

The next year he moved on to great speeches, which he said clicked for him and he’s enjoyed the category ever since. He also double enters in original oratory.

The senior students share not only a long history in speech, but a successful one, too. Blomster went to state as a freshman, sophomore and junior, and Peyman also went her sophomore and junior year. Haefer and Lockwood both went their junior years.

“They’ve done very well and it’s been great to see their success. We have some state medals among the four of them so that’s really cool,” Kathleen said.

Fairmont’s Speech team is part of the national speech and debate program and the coaches explained the many categories that are available to students because of that.

“I know that every person could do speech, because there’s absolutely something for every single person,” Kathleen said.

Blomster echoed that sentiment and said that many of the team members start in one category, as previously indicated, and try a few others before settling on what best fits not only their talents but interests.

The senior students agreed that speech has not only helped with their writing and research skills, but has tremendously improved their confidence and ability to speak in front of others.

“I feel it’s also made me better at hiding my nerves. I still get nervous, but I feel like you can’t tell. I look more calm even if I am nervous,” Peyman said.

Haefner said he had been extremely shy as a seventh grader but now he considers himself more extroverted. Because of his speech category, he said he’s also become more knowledgeable about world issues and can help explain matters to people outside of a speech environment.

Kathleen said in her years as a coach she’s always interested to find out what the students do after they graduate through the speech program and see how they use the skills they’ve learned.

“They thank their speech and performance backgrounds for it,” Kathleen said.

Today the team is splitting and one half is going to a tournament in Shakopee, which is where the state tournament will be held this year and next year. The other half of the team is staying local and will be at Martin County West’s tournament, which is hosting one after many years.

The state meet is April 19 and the coaches are hopeful that they’ll send a good number of students to it. Before that, there will be a home meet at Fairmont High School from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on March 23. Kathleen said that while’s it’s not a sport, speech can be equally as entertaining.

“I encourage everyone to come watch these kids perform,” Kathleen said.