On Monday, March 27, I had my very last high school speech performance at the 2023 All-State Speech Competition. 

There is something incredibly poetic about ending where you began, but then again maybe I am just saying that because my event was always prose. 

In my freshman year, Covid-19 year, I was nominated for All-State after performing my first prose piece, “Date a Girl who Reads” at Ames High School. This year, I was nominated for All-State after competing for the last time with my prose piece, “Advice to a New Beekeeper.” 

It is hard to correctly articulate how speech has impacted my life, but truly it has.

As many say, and I will say as well, speech is the best way to learn how to communicate effectively. But I never really cared about that.  

I am in a lot of activities, but being a part of the speech team was my favorite. Those that do not necessarily fit in under normal circumstances can find a place in speech. For any students reading, just try it out once, I hope that you would not regret it. 

What will I remember most about my time in speech? Kids singing and talking to walls. Waking up at 4:30 to catch the bus. Kids wearing Heeleys in the hallways of random schools. The feeling as I walk into my competition room and see it filled to the brim with people that want to hear what I have to say. My dad patting me on the back, aggressively hard, telling me that I did a good job. My mom saying that, in her objective opinion, I was the best performer. My sister saying that speech has changed for the worse since she graduated. 

Most of all I will remember that last performance. I have always wondered what it was like being a senior athlete and knowing that a certain game was going to be the last. I am not sure how they felt, but I think I can understand it a little better now. To say I was not nervous is a lie, but I made a decision when I walked in front of the judge. I was going to make this performance anyone had ever seen. I can not control when the end is, but I can control how I react to it. 

That was the best performance of my life. 

Speech kids are incredibly weird, but I definitely am one.