Like most of us, Jada Schmidt has never really enjoyed public speaking.
You wouldn’t know it judging by her success in speech this year. And on Saturday, the Tracy Area High School junior qualified for the state speech meet at the Section 3A Speech Tournament in Redwood Falls.
“I actually have a huge fear of public speaking,” she said. “It took a lot of convincing from my first coach to join speech, and she actually texted me when I qualified to congratulate me. I’m kind of proud of myself where I am now because I used to not be able to get on stage. Now it comes naturally.”
Schmidt competes in Extemporaneous Reading, a category that involves speaking on pre-determined cuttings from a book selected by the Minnesota State High School League.
Students draw to determine what three stories they will work from, and different cuttings can be drawn at each meet throughout the year. At sections, the cutting happened to be a short one, something that turned out to benefit Schmidt, who has been involved with speech since the eighth grade.
“It kind of gave me more space to work with my emotions in the story, which is why I did a little bit better than normal,” said Schmidt. “But I was not expecting to go to state at all. I ended up beating a lot of people that I didn’t beat this year. As I was on stage, we were all holding hands because we were all so nervous. I was so shocked. Then I texted my family afterwards.”
Schmidt defined the section tournament as much more serious than your average regular-season meet.
“You cannot be on your phone at all,” she said. “Some of the girls even got disqualified because they were texting with their coaches. Most people carry around stop watches because you can’t have your phone.”
Schmidt, the daughter of Joshua and Jennifer Schmidt of Tracy. has paid close attention to judges’ comments this year and has continuously made a point of tweaking her presentation. She has continued to do the same this week.
“Each time (the judges) give me different things that I can work on,” she said. “They’ll be like, ‘You need to make your introduction a little bit longer,’ or you need to make some of your words more clear than the other ones because they get muddled together. (The judges) are very helpful.”
The all-day Minnesota State Speech Contest is Friday, April 25, at Shakopee High School.
