NEW BLOOMFIELD, Mo. - Most days, students get in trouble for yelling in classrooms.
During Friday's speech tournament at New Bloomfield High School, however, intense - and loud - performances were the mark of dedicated contestants.
"I really enjoy the performance aspect," New Bloomfield speech team coach Beth Heldrich said.
While her teaching certification is in science, Heldrich is passionate about drama. When the former speech and debate coach left the school six years ago, she stepped up.
"Five years ago, our entire team was one freshman, because a bunch of seniors had just graduated," she said. "She recruited a bunch of kids who were super dedicated."
Now the speech team is 18 students strong. Heldrich said she's hoping to add a debate team soon, because new middle school teacher John Reynolds is getting seventh- and eighth-graders into debate.
As the host school, New Bloomfield's speech team didn't get to compete Friday. However, they were on hand to direct students to events and sell concessions. This year, the third year New Bloomfield has played host to a tournament, students from Versailles, Calvary Lutheran, California, Helias, Moberly, Salisbury and Tipton. Events included poetry, prose, original works, dramatic interpretation, duet acting, humorous interpretation, storytelling, radio speaking and improv duets.
"Poetry is my favorite to watch," said Pat Seifert, an English teacher and assistant coach for Helias. "That's one where they read the poem, but they do their own introduction."
She likes watching the students gain confidence in public speaking. Her school's team includes about 18 students, she said, adding they've had a solid season so far.
For New Bloomfield students, the season is over, save for district competitions March 2-3. Many are already looking forward to next season.
"I've been like one point off from the final round every time this year," said Faith Erickson, a junior in her first year on the team.
Her main event is prose.
"My piece is about the Columbine shooting," she said. "My aunt gave me this book called 'She Said Yes' for Christmas one year. It's written by the mom of (one of the victims). There's something about it I've always connected with."
The book traces the story of Cassie Bernall, including her troubled time in middle school and her reported confession of faith in God as she faced down the shooter.
"When you do a piece that means a lot to you I can express that and have others believe it and maybe they'll go out and read the book," Erickson said.
She said she'll have a hard time topping the topic next year.
On the lighter end of the spectrum, Emily Gray and Mateesa Crowlei, both juniors from California, enjoy doing duet improv together. During that event, pairs are given a prompt. They then have five minutes to develop and five to perform a comedy routine.
"We have similar ideas of comedy," Gray said. "We can both be very different and bring different things to the table, but we're similar and she's my best friend.
Gray also participated in storytelling, where she presented the children's book "The Day the Crayons Came Home," sequel to the book she performed last year.
"I like how there can be so many characters in kids' books and you can do so many types of characters," she said. "Plus, you don't have to write your own."
Crowlei, who also competed in prose, said she joined the team because she wanted to get better at speaking in front of people.
"I want to go into developing pharmaceuticals and that involves a lot of presentations," she said.