ABOVE: Fairmont High School Speech Coach, Kathleen Walker. Submitted headshot.

FAIRMONT – Fairmont Speech Coach Kathleen Walker has been named the 2026 High School Coach of the Year by the National Speech and Debate Association. She was chosen from a pool of coaches from over 4,000 schools across America.

For her, the journey started at the same stage her students are now at and evolved over time.

“I did speech on the Redwood Valley speech team from eighth grade to my senior year,” Walker said. “I loved speech so much that I wanted to continue it in college. I tried it for a few years at Concordia Moorhead, from 2011 to 2013. I tried speech just to continue my joy for speaking, sharing a powerful message and I love performing. I couldn’t continue it past my sophomore year in college, I just had other commitments, like getting ready to be a teacher.”

After graduating, Walker made her way to Fairmont in the Spring of 2015, being offered a position as an English teacher and as head speech coach. From then until now, Walker said she has found her way in what works best.

“When I started, I did a lot of wondering what had been done before me and making sure I tried to continue that,” she said. “While that was very beneficial, because I could only learn what to do from people’s previous actions, I was so glad to have seniors who were able to tell me what was what. With how to do something as simple as, how can we do speech practice after school, what works best, getting a lot of ideas from the kids and the predecessors.”

In this evolution, Walker said she has learned a lot from her students.

“Figuring out what kind of experience they want and balancing that with knowing what my experience has taught me and what’s best for kids,” she said. “Also leaning heavily on them, because the kind of kids that have done speech and have led my program over the past decade have been some of the best people I think from Fairmont I’ve ever met, because they’re strong leaders, they model respect and integrity and so I trust their suggestions.”

The nomination for Walker was submitted by her husband, Head Debate Coach Erik Walker. When she found out about it, she thought it would be a great thing for Fairmont Speech as a whole.

“I thought that it was an opportunity for the Southern District Committee to learn about what’s going on here at Fairmont more than myself,” she said. “If people know who the Fairmont speech team is, what we’re doing here and how wonderful our kids are, that’s mainly what I wanted them to know.”

First, Walker won Coach of the Year for her District, along with Belinda Lutterman winning Student of the Year. That awards ceremony took place in March, but Walker wouldn’t find out until just a few weeks ago that she would be chosen for nationwide recognition.

“I was at a coaching session with one of my students practicing when Erik Walker walked into the classroom with one of the students he was coaching with,” she said. “They had this look on their face, and everything stopped. Erik said, ‘We have news, you won National Coach of the Year.’ I wasn’t expecting it.”

To have been chosen as the National Coach of the Year was an experience Walker said was humbling, as she knows all the people across over 4,000 speech and debate programs work so hard to be seen, heard and valued in their communities, as well as the help and support she has received from her assistant coaches Erik Walker and Miles Duffy.

“I wouldn’t be doing this without my peers,” she said. “It means that what I’m doing is recognized as something very special, and I’m honored to show the nation, just this little blip on the map, Fairmont, what we’re doing down here in speech. It’s really cool.”

For Walker, her eyes remain on her team and next steps. June 14-19 will be nationals in Richmond, Virginia. Walker will be recognized for her accomplishment, but she will be working with qualifiers Lutterman, Leon Yang and Allie Streit to help them get ready for tough competition.

“We get back, we take the tiniest little break,” Walker said. “I look forward to spending time with my husband and my daughter all summer long as she grows, and I get to have some time off from teaching. Then back at speech pretty much when August rolls around. I’m already meeting with kids about the coming speech season.”