The Owatonna Speech team involves both the Owatonna Middle School and High School. A member practices one on one with a coach prior to the meets. The meets consist of six to eight students in a room, one of which is a judge. One of the students will present their speech three times and is ranked based on their delivery and presentation. Sometimes there is a final round where the top-ranked students read their speech to the judge again. Students compete from December through April. 

The coach for the team is Ms. Marcia Anderson, who is also a math teacher at OHS. She was involved in speech when she was in high school, and when she came to Owatonna to teach in 1993, she took a position as a speech coach. She coached for about six years and then took time off to start a family. Three years ago, the organization asked for more speech coaches and she said yes again. Ms. Anderson said, “I am always looking forward to meeting new students and seeing how they change from the beginning of the season to the end.”

OHS junior Ashton Jensen has been involved in Speech since his freshman year, and this year he is one of the speech captains. Jensen said, “It’s a great activity that enables me to use my skill set. My favorite memory from last year was winning the Big 9 conference along with tons of other Owatonna teams.” One of Jensen’s highlights of being on the team is the positive community and the skill set that the Speech team has. His low is waking up on a Saturday around 6:30 a.m. to catch the bus for the meets. 

New students that would like to join have until December. The Speech Team meets on Saturdays. The team meets once a week with there coach at either the high school or middle school. The season goes from December to April with their first mock meet from 7:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Jan. 25, 2020, at the OMS.