Tusky Valley High student wins speech championship
Kylie Daum is the first Tusky Valley speech student to bring home a championship trophy from the Tournament of Champions held recently at Northwestern University in Kentucky.
Tusky Valley senior Kylie Daum is the first student from the TV speech team to win the annual Tournament of Champions competition. Held at the University of Kentucky, this year’s tournament drew more than 1,300 students from 40 states who competed in various speech and debate categories.
Daum competed on the speech side in the Humorous Interpretation category. Tusky Valley has a long record of fielding state and national champions in Humor, including Drake Spina, son of head speech coach Carrie Spina and Daum’s cousin.
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Carrie Spina said.
But more than potentially inherited talent, it takes a huge amount of effort and sacrifice to make it to the national stage.
In addition to their academic schoolwork, speech students compete in daylong tournaments every Saturday from November through February.
“She’s not only doing speech, but she’s very active in drama and is always in shows,” said Shawn Daum, Kylie’s father. “I think that’s a lot for a young person to take on, and for her to shine the way she does, I think is pretty amazing.”
Kylie Daum also is ranked first in the state of Ohio and second in the nation in Humor.
“I think it’s a very small percentage of people who qualify to nationals in general, let alone all four years,” Kylie Daum said. “I knew as a freshman I wanted to qualify all four years.”
Students in speech and debate earn points throughout the season each time they compete. During her four years competing, Kylie Daum accumulated enough points — 1,600 in all — to achieve the NSDA’s Premier Distinction, the highest level a student can receive.
Also competing at the TOC was Tusky Valley sophomore Camden McCoy, who competes in a category called Program of Oral Interpretation. In this category students take cuttings from several sources of literature (prose or poetry), films and other writings and put them together in a 10-minute speech in support of a common theme.
“Cam qualified to TOC as a sophomore,” Carrie Spina said. “He won our Eastern Ohio District competition, placed third in the state of Ohio and is the first Tusky Valley student ever to qualify for nationals in POI.”
Nationals is the national tournament sponsored by the National Speech and Debate Association. This year’s tournament will see the top 6,700 students from 1,500 schools across America compete in 42 categories, each of which will produce a national champion.
Also advancing to nationals this year is Allison Ernst, who qualified in Informative Speaking in her very first year trying speech.
“Alli is a senior, and she just said, ‘Hey, I’ll give it a try,’” Carrie Spina said. “So she made it as a novice to the state and national tournaments.”
A future fashion design major, Ernst earned her spot at nationals in the Informative category with a speech called “Death of the Trend Cycle,” a look at overproduction and waste in the fashion industry.
“I had no clue or any expectations that I would ever make it to nationals my first year,” Ernst said. “I won the novice tournament and then took second at our first big tournament, but still, I didn’t expect it.”
So who is Bernice Buttman?
Buttman is the main character in Kylie Daum’s humorous speech taken from the children’s book, “Bernice Buttman, Model Citizen,” written by Niki Lenz.
The speech was developed by Drake Spina and presented to Kylie Daum in her sophomore year, but she chose another piece. Kylie Daum decided this was the year to bring Bernice out.
“Carrie told me Drake said this was going to be a national champion piece, and it was just the best thing ever,” Kylie Daum said.
The story about a young girl whose mother leaves her with her aunt (a nun) while she runs off to California with a new boyfriend seems tailor-made for today’s street-smart middle school kids.
“The piece shows the character development of Bernice at the beginning, when she’s a bully, to where she finally feels like she has a family and she fits in,” Kylie Daum said.
This pivot point is where Bernice sees the value in being good and decides to become more than just good. She sets out to be a role model to others living in tough circumstances.
“I’m super-proud of her,” said Jennifer Daum, Kylie’s mom. “The first time we went to nationals, she saw all the four-time qualifiers on stage, and she whispered in my ear, ‘I want to do that. I’m going to be a four-time qualifier.’”
And so she is. Kylie Daum, McCoy and Ernst will compete at the NSDA National Tournament from June 15-20 in Iowa.