i love my speechers!

I haven't blogged too much about speech this season. But now that the season is over, it's time for a recap. We had the best year we've had in my five years of coaching. First of all, we were more successful as a team, placing second at both our conference and district meets and ninth at the state meet. But more importantly, this team really enjoyed being together. The members became great friends, and it was a joy to coach them.

Last week, the junior high and high school students washed all the school's vehicles as a service project. When they finished with the school buses, vans, etc., they moved on to staff cars. This is perhaps embarrassing, or maybe just indicative of my upbringing, but that was the first time my car had been washed since I bought it nearly two years ago! It looked amazing from the front . . . but then I saw the back windows . . . The elephant is because Horton Hears a Who was kind of our theme this year. I'm not exactly sure why . . . And "Godspeed" was our catch phrase for the year. Right before the first meet, the juniors had a discussion with one of their teachers about how Christians should say "Godspeed" instead of "Good Luck" . . . and it stuck! At our annual speech showcase last week, the team presented the assistant coach and me with copies of Horton Hears a Who that they had all written notes in, and one of the girls gave me "good luck" socks to wear at the state meet. (I wore them during the awards ceremony.) So here we are (minus 5): The 2009 Speech Team!