270 Kids Reading Poems and Plays -- That's My Kind of Saturday

While grown men (and a few women) tromp about South Dakota's sunny fields today taking their first crack at our state bird, this blogger will be indoors -- not blogging, but running the 25th annual Karl E. Mundt Dakota Invititational Oral Interpretation Contest on the Dakota State University campus. Today 270 students from 28 schools around the state will spend the day performing ten-minute selections from poems, plays, and even a few great orations.

I've spent my Saturdays this way for two decades. Twenty years ago, I attended my first oral interp contest as a competitor for the mighty Madison Bulldogs, coached by Gail Means. She had finally convinced me in my junior year that I might actually enjoy competitive speech activities. She was 100% right. I had all sorts of fun performing humor, drama, poetry, and duet. Every weekend I heard a rich variety of literature. Other competitors performed some of the latest plays and poetry, works that would take years to filter down into the stodgy old lit anthologies that high schools purchase for their English classrooms. When the debate season opened in November, I could butt heads with some of the sharpest minds in the state (we didn't have blogs for that purpose then). I won a few trophies, got to travel to exotic destinations like Clear Lake, Aberdeen, and Mitchell, and met all sorts of interesting students from around the state, kids I never would have met just hanging around in Madison. And of course, among those students were lots of cute girls dressed to the nines... and some of them actually liked me! Literature and ladies -- what better way for a 16-year-old boy to spend his weekends?

After high school, I stayed on the interp and debate circuit, working through college as a speech judge and helping the Madison speech team. No longer competing, I found I could enjoy interp and debate contests even more. Sitting at the back of the room, not worrying about remembering my lines and blocking, I could just enjoy the steady stream of young people who dragged themselves out of bed on Saturday, dressed up, and came to read each other great literature or to get into arguments about politics and philosophy. Better yet, I faced a new mental challenge: I had to objectively analyze all these performances, fairly decide whose performance was the best, and write comments that would help every one of the students who performed for me get better at public speaking.

I loved the work. Every weekend I basically got to help coach 20-40 different kids from around the state, not to mention helping out the kids from my alma mater. I wouldn't miss a tournament. The speech contest schedule defined my sense of time from October to March: pheasant opener is interp at DSU; first weekend of November is the debate opener at Sioux Falls; weekend before Christmas is the Brookings Bell debate contest; second weekend of February is Mundt debater in Madison....

After some crazy academic peripatetics after SDSU, I finally settled back here to coach debate at Madison and eventually debate, interp, and drama at Montrose for several years. I followed the same schedule, brining my own team with me and judging almost every weekend. Every year I was thrilled to see so many kids putting aside jobs and basketball games to come compete in the arts. They may not get big audiences -- interp and debate contests seem to happen under the radar in most towns -- but they get to perform for others and learn skills and confidence that they will play every day of their lives in any career they choose.

I'm not coaching now, but I still get to be involved in speech activities. I get out on weekends to judge. It's as fun as ever, and it even helps pay for some groceries.

And today my good friend Toby Uecker and I get to run the Dakota Invitational for DSU. Running tournaments together is like skateboarding; it's our extreme sport. We coordinate the movements of 270 kids and 60 judges among 50 rooms all around campus. We create a schedule, tally the results, track down lost judges, and in the end get to hand out ribbons and trophies to kids with big smiles on their faces.

In addition to those trophies, this year, thanks to the DSU Foundation, we get to hand out scholarships. The Foundation and its president, Chris Giles, heard our proposal for some added recognition for the kids who make this effort and saw that these kids are exactly the sort of go-getters that DSU (and every university) wants to draw to its campus. Thus, the top performers at today's contest will win $500 scholarships to DSU.

But interp and debate will pay off for every kid at these speech contests far beyond any scholarship awards. These kids are engaging with the arts. They are spending a Saturday sharing stories and poems. They are performing for each other. They are making friendships and building confidence and skills that will make their lives richer and happier.

I can shoot birds some other time. This weekend, Toby and I get to provide 270 kids with a great educational and social experience. Now that's my kind of Saturday.