Earlier this month, some West Texas A&M University students that are part of the WTAMU speech team finished in the top five of the state competition in a number of areas

“That takes a whole lot of practice. And while you and why you don’t practice the exact debate, per say, you practice the skills that you take into that, like analyzing the topics and, and what you say and stuff. So it’s not exactly practice of those events and debate where it is practicing those events in the individual events thing. But like the kids work on them for hours, like we carry a topic all year long, because we’re trying to make it better,” said Connie McKee, Director of Forensics.

Practice seemed to pay off for students participating in the state competition, placing in different areas of the competition and not with an easy win. With many teams being a part of this competition, the Buffaloes stood out in a great way.

“As for tournament, I will definitely say that I’ve had my fair share of success as well as the rest of the team. But in regard to our most recent tournament, I placed fifth and second and third, second in persuasive. Third in exempt, and fifth in persuasive for the first”, said sophomore political science major Adrian Trevino.

This however is not the only time the speech team has shined. They have been winning in various competitions for some time and don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

According to Wtamu.com/News, “WT’s strong finish comes on the heels of another great showing the prior week at Webster University’s Gorlok tournament where Lockhart and Mata placed fourth in duo improvisation, and Lockhart placed fifth in programmed oral interpretation. Mata also made quarterfinals in novice International Public Debate Association (IPDA) and Josiah Kinsky of Canyon placed second in IPDA.”

Practice, patience and dedication seem to be just some of the attributes one must carry when going into competition. Hard work and a love for speech seems to be necessary to thrive.

“It’s really great that the kids are getting to have a payoff for how hard they work. Right, and, and they do work hard. They, they work hard. All year long. We compete it probably about two to two tournaments a week, not a week, sorry, a month. And so that takes a lot of time. Because when we go to compete, we start on Friday, and we end up Sunday. So we spend a lot of long hours doing competition. So it’s really good when it shows that it pays off.

These Buffaloes seem to mean business in their field that they are going into competition for and surely this is not the last time we will hear from them.