Holy Redeemer’s Bellarmine Speech team made an appearance at the March 23 speech meet at Immaculate Conception of Dardenne. Every participating student received a ribbon, earning four blue ribbons and two red ribbons for the participating group of six. Alongside the students was Richard Dempsey, middle school English and Social Studies teacher, who attended as the coordinator for the group.
Earning a blue ribbon for her humorous speech “Every Junior’s Nightmare” was Riley Guller, who performed a solo speech. Danielle Ziegler also received a blue ribbon for her solo humorous speech, “Room on the Broom.” Maggie O’Connell and Katie Kelly performed the duet “What is it?” and earned blue ribbons. Earning a red ribbon were Emma Wilson and Adela Kessler for their speech “Joe’s Pizza Parlor, How May We Help You?”
Each speech is judged based on visual, audible and psychological elements. Each of the three categories is eligible for 5 points, for 15 points total, and each speech is performed twice. A perfect score of 30 earns a gold ribbon, with scores of 27-29, 22-26, 15-21, and 4-14 earning blue, red, white, and green ribbons respectively.
The goal of the Bellarmine Speech League is to promote verbal communication skills for students in the fifth through eighth grades. It was founded by Father A. Francis Coomes, who taught at SLUH, in 1945 to teach public speaking to students in schools of the Archdiocese of St.Louis. Participation in speech “develops a feeling of confidence in speaking in front of people, it helps memory, and it also helps develop phrasing, emphasis, and emotion,” states Dempsey.
