National qualifiers, from left Jason Benyousky, Var Bobba, Keely Roe and Grace Ganswer.

By Shari Benyousky
Guest Columnist

As I threaded my way down the crowded hallway last week, I heard high-pitched screaming behind one door, a Pee Wee Herman voice behind another, and a clown laughing behind a third. Welcome to Nationals Speech Competition where 5,000 people from all over the United States and a few foreign countries converge to compete at multiple high schools around the Phoenix, Ariz., area. They are competing in all kinds of venues from informational to poetry to debate to drama to humor. Each student represents the top talent from their home state. Some from the Warsaw Community High School team have made it here too.

Grace Ganser shows off her National Competition T-shirt.

Close your eyes and picture the scene: high school hallways clogged with nervous teenagers wearing suits and professional attire. Each one has a red/white/and blue ribbon pinned to their chest which indicates they have qualified to compete at nationals after a long year of speech meets at the state level. You’ll also see judges wearing yellow ribbons and coaches wearing aqua ones. You see a lot of people holding maps and pointing.

Team Members

This year the Warsaw Community High School team has four members who qualified for nationals: Jason Benyousky, Var Bobba, Grace Ganser, and Keely Roe. We also have one who is competing in supplemental events — Dailyn Stemen. They are here with their coach Katherine Anders and two people functioning as both parents and National Judges — Lori Roe, professor of communications at Ivy Tech Warsaw, and myself, professor of English at Purdue Fort Wayne. We arrived the Sunday before the competition began for a day of judging training, registration, and figuring out how to use the Metro Train from Mesa to the Phoenix Convention Center (easy and cheap, by the way).

Temperature Over 100

We quickly realize that here in the southwest the temperature ranges from 95-107 degrees depending on the time of day. Of course, out here in the west it’s a “dry heat,” so stepping into the shade drops the temperature significantly. Students dressed in full suits and ties learn to find the shady side of the building quickly.

How A Day Goes

A competition day begins early. On the first Monday, the team meets downstairs at 7 a.m. for a team picture before heading off to various satellite locations. They will have four rounds of competition each day and not arrive back to their hotels until 7:30 p.m. when they will collectively slip out of their professional suits and into their swimsuits while simultaneously attempting to snarf down pizza.

By 8 p.m. the hotel pool is choked with students from all over the United States talking to each other. “How did it go?” “Where are you from?” One team tosses a beach ball around the pool collecting teenagers wherever it lands. There are at least 10 in the hot tub comparing notes too. The hotel bravely attempts to keep the towel supply fresh with the washer and dryers running nonstop. Competition is stressful, but also a lot of fun.

Can There Be Fun?

One day during a rare break from the grueling competition, the team decided to try an upscale dinner to celebrate the competitors. We hopped off the train mid-afternoon, the only time everyone was free. The restaurant was mostly empty, and the waitress Cindy immediately adopted the kids and told them how to order and which silverware to use.

While they waited, Jason pulled out a 12-inch tall stack of cards assembled from many deck remnants. “It’s called Cursed Uno,” he told the speech competitors around him. “We made it up. So, like a Joker card means you pick up all the cards. If you have four of the same card, we all switch hands clockwise.” There was laughter all around. One wrote down a list of rules to refer to. Another made up a new rule. “This isn’t about winning, is it?” said one. “I think it’s about being funny.” They had a wonderful time.

The waitress hovered about learning the game and giving tips. Even the chef came out after cooking their salmon and risotto and bruschetta and pasta.

What About The Judges?

Dailyn Stemen, Grace Caser and Keely Roe enjoy Phoenix public transportation.

Back to the grind of competition. Judging is also tough work as it takes all day starting early and ending late just like the competitors. Judges run back and forth across the high school campus to hear the most amazing presentations about every topic you can imagine, and a slew that you can’t.

In my first round, I heard topics ranging from serial killers to Austin Powers to sexual abuse to a spoof about Batboy, half bat, and half human. Each competitor brings a lifelong passion and practice to the room. Each round I saw seven 10-minute amazing presentations and had to rank them. Each one will stay with me forever.

When each round ended, we walked out into the glaring sun and pulled out our maps to see if we had time to swoop through the hospitality office for a cup of bad coffee before doing it again.

Local Food

By day three, our suits and ties showed wrinkles and our judging ribbons had coffee stains. We knew half the people in our hotel and had tables unofficially staked out in the multiple cafeteria rooms where everyone gathered between rounds.

We had eaten a lot of cutie oranges and granola bars since neither needed to be refrigerated in the heat. For lunch, some of us had a minute to try the nearby Salvadoreno Restaurant where we gorged ourselves on pupusas (thick tortillas stuffed with meat and cheese), maduros (fried plantains), and empanadas loaded with potatoes and beans.

Our waitress laughed at our attempted pronunciations and shook her head when we mistook a Salvadoran variety of smooth salsa for soup.

The End

By the end of the week, competitors from Alaska to Texas to Indiana had added each other to Instagram and Discord and all the other social media teenagers use. They had taken and posted dozens of pictures and made dozens of promises to look one another up.

Perhaps some of them will find each other in college or hire each other for a job from LinkedIn someday. But no matter who won and who lost, all of them knew they had survived a great feat. Every contestant felt honored and appreciated, even those in very last place.

The Warsaw High School Speech and Debate Team did not make it to the final rounds of the event. The last standing on Thursday was Var Bobba. On Friday they celebrated by climbing a mountain north of Phoenix.

Considering the hundreds of competitors (thousands for some if you counted their state competitors), that they had to win against to get to that mountain in Phoenix, they should all be extraordinarily proud, as should YOU.

Know of an interesting place or person which you’d like to see featured behind the scenes someday? Send SB Communications LLC an email at [email protected].