The Bison Gold speech team is changing a few things about their program this year. One of them is pushing more students to attend several speech invitationals in the winter before the district meet. There has been a lot of competitive feedback from the students who give up their Saturdays for these meets, some of which received placing medals.

    “I feel as though I could have performed a lot better than I could have,” senior Julie Cook said. “Fourth place is not acceptable to me. Next time, it’s first or nothing.”

    These speech invitationals are not just for the elite competitors that advance to state every year. The majority of these meets are designed to help novices become more familiar with their event. Students like senior Erica Rios have taken on a new event in hopes of learning speech skills to use in real life some day.

    “[These meets] help you think on your feet,” Rios said. “Winning two out of four was really good because most of those students were senior debaters.”

    Some of the new competitors have never experienced what it’s like to compete in the district meet. Junior Kendall Lee is one of the many newcomers to the Bison Gold speech team that attended the recent invitational in Groesbeck on the 9th.

    “These practices really help me understand how the real contest will work in the spring,” Lee said. “I am really pumped about the upcoming contest because I really want to win!”