Kenston Speech & Debate team boasts first state champion in 24 years

“We’ve had competitors in finals several times but we’ve never had a state champion, so we were really happy when Eden finally, through her hard work, earned the state championship in declamation,” coach Stephan Voudris said.

There are 13 events in high school speech and debate. Students may write their own speeches or interpret a piece of literature.

Declamation involves memorizing and presenting a speech that has previously been given, such as a commencement address or eulogy. Eden gave a moving speech by Hannah Gadsby, Mr. Voudris said.

Sophomores Addison Altmann and Jake Spencer reached quarterfinals in humorous interpretation, making them among the funniest competitors in the state.

Jake’s piece, “This is a Test,” is a short play about a student’s nightmare of taking an impossibly difficult test.

“Part of the test is in Chinese, and he doesn’t know how to speak Chinese,” Mr. Voudris said. Another part is a multiple-choice question about why the student has no social life.

Addison performed a portion of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” a children’s book and movie series, acting as various characters. She came up with that idea herself, Mr. Voudris said.

Students “can pick whatever play or take a portion of a book – any type of literature – and cut it down to 10 minutes,” Mr. Voudris said.

In the summer, team members begin choosing their speeches, he said. The team competes in about a dozen tournaments throughout the season before heading to district tournaments in February, followed by state-level competition.

There are other events, too, including extemporaneous speech, where students give four speeches on a current event topic with only a half hour to prepare each speech. Extemporaneous speech requires practice and keeping up with current events, Mr. Voudris said.

Mr. Voudris said he owes the success of the team to students’ hard work throughout the season, trying to improve through practice and tournaments, as well as the education they receive from Kenston teachers beginning in elementary school.

Kenston speech and debate has been recognized in other ways. Devin Snook, KHS Class of 2001, was inducted into the Ohio Speech and Debate Association Coaches Hall of Fame. Mr. Snook was on Kenston’s first speech and debate team and is now head coach at Vermilion High School.

The Kenston Middle School Speech and Debate Team was recently recognized with the McCandless Award for Cleveland’s outstanding middle school program of the year.

“We had a large middle school program this year,” with more than 50 students coming to practice, Mr. Voudris said. “We couldn’t have done it without the help of a large portion of the high school team, who would come help coach the middle schoolers and teach them how to do the different events. As well, we had a lot of parent support and volunteer assistant coaches.”

The students worked hard, and Mr. Voudris said it was nice that the Cleveland district recognized the team for its performance at tournaments throughout the year.

Mr. Voudris began coaching speech and debate at Kenston seven years ago because his daughter, Kimberly, was a member of the team. Now, his eighth-grade daughter, Grace Voudris, is on the middle school team.

Mr. Voudris, an attorney, said that any student can reap the benefits from speech and debate.

“No matter what career someone enters, speaking is a very important part of it,” whether it be communicating ideas to coworkers or a boss, Mr. Voudris said.

Speech and debate also prepares students for research and writing that they will be assigned in college, he said.

“I personally think that speech and debate is one of the best extracurricular activities to prepare you for work down the road,” he said.