On Saturday, Jan. 20, Lincoln Southwest speech team hosted the annual Silver Talon speech tournament from 1 p.m. – 8 p.m. LSW speech students helped run the tournament by working at  concessions, giving directions to competitors and helping with awards.

“I love organizing them (tournaments). I just really like putting on an event that recognizes a lot of kids and makes it a place that people want to be,” speech coach Mr. Matt Heimes said. “We have worked really hard over the years to make sure we have really good food and that kids and judges are treated well. We’ve become known as a good predictor of how things will go at state because we get multiple classes.”

There were 33 schools attending, ranging from Class A to Class C2. With 407 competitors in 708 events, only six LSW students competed. Two LSW students finaled, juniors Vittoria Quaranta and Sandarika Warjri. Quaranta placed fourth in the consolation round of Extemporaneous Speaking and Warjri placed fourth in the consolation round of Humorous Interpretation.

“It’s so nice to be familiar with the building because it was my first speech tournament,” Quaranta said. “I didn’t have to worry about trying to find the rooms, I could just focus on the event itself.”

Overall the tournament raised $8,500 for the speech team, which will go toward entries for more tournaments and travel for the postseason. Up next, the LSW speech team members will compete either on Friday, Jan. 26, from 3 p.m. – 10 p.m. at Northeast or on Saturday, Jan. 27, from 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. at Millard West.