Saints Notes   January 20, 2010

Thursday morning, the Saints Speech Team will board bus #8 and hit the road to Seward, Nebraska.

(First, you need to know we don't have eight buses.  We have bus #4 and bus #8 - as the fleet grows we'll need to look for the appropriate bus numbers I guess so they feel like they fit into the group.)

Concordia University in Seward, Nebraska is one of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod post-secondary schools and the closest one to Indianapolis that has a speech (known as Forensics) team and hosts a tournament for high school teams.

We are in are third season of competitive speech at Lutheran.  A member of the IHSFA (Indiana High School Forensics Association) and the NFL (National Forensics League).  Our first year had three students.  Last year six.  This year, eleven competitors competing in 13 different events.

In all that time - we've had two boys on the team.  (This is a bit unsettling to me, I was on the speech team in high school, so were other guys.)  So, I'm the coach of a team of intelligent, smart, and funny young women that I can't begin to figure out.  (My wife and I have two sons who have now left the nest, so figuring out teen-age girls has been a great learning experience.)

We are blessed with incredible talent here at Lutheran, and even though we have a small team and compete against students from much, much larger schools, students are learning, growing, and earning top finishes.

Last week, we had eight students competing and brought home three ribbons!

Concordia University is welcoming us with open arms, and I'm very appreciative all that Michael Vincent, Dr Bryan Moore and Dustin Haider of the Concordia Speech Team, and Lynne Kumm have done to make this feasible for us to take part in this weekend.

We'll have competitiors in Prose Literature Interpretation (four), Impromptu (two), Poetry Interpretation (one), Entertainment Speaking (one) and Duet Acting (two students/one team).

While we're there, students will have an opportuntiy to tour the campus, meet professors and students, and soak up some of the college life of Seward (just west of Lincoln).  Then Saturday, it's a full day of competition - it will be interesting to see how we stack up against teams in Nebraska and adjust to slightly different areas of competition.

I'm excited about the trip.  Please keep our trip in your prayers.

It's our tip of the cap to Horace Greeley.   I'll tell you about it when we return.