Wayne High and Wayne State to co-host Classic Speech Meet

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Over 300 competitors from 19 schools will participate in the fifth annual Wayne High/Wayne State Classic speech meet on Saturday, Feb. 4.

Schools from as far away as O’Neill and Bennington will travel to the WSC campus for the event, hosted by the Wayne High Speech/Drama Club.

“We aim to be the premier speech meet in northeast Nebraska,” Wayne High Head Speech Coach Dwaine Spieker said. 

Spieker created the meet in 2019.  “I like to think that at least we’ve become a highlight to many teams’ seasons.”

This year the meet is co-hosted by the Wayne State Speech Team, coached by Jonathan Laner.

Spieker said that the format of the event was recently expanded.

“After the NSAA (Nebraska School Activities Association) expanded the format of the state tournament in March in Kearney to three-rounds-and-finals, I thought it would be good to give kids at least one regular season meet in that format.

“So we now have that format for this tournament.  It’s strenuous—not to mention a little scary,” Spieker continued. “But this will show the kids the kind of physical and psychological stamina it will take to have eight to twelve performances in one day.”

Over 400 events are entered in the tournament, which will be judged by over 70 judges from the region. Overall, the day will feature almost 1,400 performances around campus.

“We’re very grateful for the chance to collaborate with the college here,” Spieker said.  “An event like this would just not be possible without Wayne State’s facilities.”

"Co-hosting this tournament with Coach Spieker and Wayne High is a great opportunity to get students here on campus. The tournament is a great recruiting tool for not only the college, but the WSC Speech Team and the Department of Communication Arts benefit greatly," Coach Laner said. 

"My students get first hand experience judging and running a tournament and the Wayne High staff gets extra help making sure the tournament goes as smooth as possible! We are looking forward to helping host this tournament on our campus and working within the community to benefit the world of speech communication," Laner added.