It won’t be long and I will find some of my time occupied with teenagers preparing for Speech competition. Large group contest is up first which means I will be spending time working with groups of students preparing to compete with musical theater pieces. Staging, music, storytelling . . . the whole package presented for adjudicators with the goal of making it from District Competition to State. Once large group is over, it’s on to individual performances which means some one-on-one coaching with performers.

But what makes this speech season extra special is the fact that my youngest daughter will be coaching a team of her own! She is in her first year as a teacher, working at the local Catholic school where she will also be in charge of the speech team. As a first year coach, she has already warned her former coach that she will be asking all kinds of questions and, needless to say, her former coach is more than happy to help! And I’m looking forward to seeing her at speech events!