You may have seen on The Eagle’s Call morning announcements mention a DECLAM duo in this week’s Student Spotlight. This hardworking duo is made up of two 7th grade girls, Aubrey Miller and Traci Bosch. They were nominated by the DECLAM coaches Mrs. Erickson and Ms.Vaillancourt this week. Although they haven’t performed yet, their first competition is coming up this Saturday at Falcon Ridge Middle School. They are performing a pre-written speech about a girl and an annoying neighbor who become friends in the end. We interviewed the girls and one of their coaches to learn more information about them, DECLAM, and why they were nominated for this week’s student spotlight.

DECLAM is the Valley Middle School of STEM’s speech and debate team, equivalent to the high schools. You either pick a speech that is already written, or you can write your own original piece. It could be a creative or research based, whatever you desire. The team competes against other schools in the district for ribbons, working on great skills you learn in Communications like speaking loudly, eye contact, and pronunciation. Most people don’t know what it stands for, but DECLAM actually stands for declamation, which is a fancy word for speech. If you are interested in joining next year, it is open to all grade levels. Come to the informational meeting next year to learn more about it and hopefully you are interested.

Both Traci and Aubrey are new to DECLAM this year, and they overall enjoy it. Aubrey’s favorite part about DECLAM is writing her own speeches, while Traci’s favorite thing to do is hang out with friends like Aubrey during practices. The girls joined because it looked fun and for something new to try. Both girls hope to do it again next year, and if they enjoy even more they again they will consider joining the high school Speech and Debate team. Although they have mixed thoughts about their first competition that is coming up, Aubrey is ready because she doesn’t think it will be as intimidating as coaches and teammates made it sound.

There were multiple reasons the duo was nominated and we would love to share a few of them! Considering they are first years, both of them come to practice more than needed to and work very hard to improve their speech, make it better, add to it, each and every time. Another reason is that they get a lot of feedback on their speech from their coaches and take it into consideration, also working on stepping out of their comfort zone and trying new stuff every time. These two girls are all around outstanding achievers when it comes to DECLAM.