Mark Twain once said, “There are only two types of speakers in the world. 1. The nervous and 2. Liars.” The Banner County High School speech team members are conquering their nerves during the 2026 speech season. Our speech members compete in events of Informative, Serious Prose, and Poetry. They travel to contests as far away as Chadron and North Platte, and as close as Gering, and compete with other public speakers from different high schools around the state.
This year’s Wildcats Speech team includes seniors Abigayle Jones and Kesmera Palu, sophomore Makynna Boettcher, and freshman Luke Olsen. Guiding these speech participants is Mr. C. These kids are pushing themselves to expand their horizons by competing in multiple categories at these competitions, some of which require our students to compete against each other. Abby, Kesmera, and Makynna compete in Serious Prose, an event in which they act out a story with a serious message written by another person. Kesmera also competes in Poetry in which she recites poems that are all connected by a theme. Luke performs an informative speech that he wrote himself, hoping to inform the audience about a topic.
Each of these speeches must be memorized and performed in front of judges and an audience. Mr. C describes the skills needed for speech as, “A willingness to go out for it, being able to stand up there in front of people, deliver your speech, and be able to memorize the speech.” To develop these skills, members practice at least twice a week with Mr. C and many more times throughout the week on their own. By conquering these skill sets, our students learn to enjoy public speaking. “It [Speech competitions] can help build the skill of public speaking that we should all have experience with,” stated Makynna. This was one of the main reasons why she joined the team.
This work ethic has paid off by placing at competitions throughout the season. At the Mitchell contest, Kesmera, Abby, and Makynna made it to finals. Kesmera placed 5th in Poetry and 6th in Serious. Abby placed 5th in Serious, and Makynna placed 4th in Serious. Makynna also placed 6th in Serious at the Scottsbluff. The team competed at the MAC conference contest in Gering on February 28th. All of the members placed at this competition! Makynna placed 5th in Serious, Kesmera placed 3rd in Poetry, Abby placed 2nd in Serious, and Luke placed 1st in Informative.
All of these competitions are building up to Districts, and hopefully State. To make it to State from Districts, these members will need to get in the top three in their respective categories. As they practice, these students are becoming a third type of speaker - confident ones. – By Luke Olsen