Kennedy will be hosting this year’s Large Group State Speech competition on Feb. 2.  It will involve about half of the students who moved on from the district competition, and then a top percentage of the students from the state competition to the all-state level.

“Only the very elite make it to all-state,” Martin Robinson, sr., said. “I’d say about the top 10 percent.”

In order to host the state competition, preparations have to be made. Rooms have to be prepared, teachers and supervisors are needed to be outside the rooms to make sure it stays quiet for the people inside the rooms, people to time and people to judge need to be found, and lots of parents will be volunteering to help set up too.

“It’ll be an ordeal,” Robinson said. “It’s going to take a lot of manpower.”

“There’s going to be about 5,000 people here,” Isabel Neff, jr., the president of speech, said. “and it’s going to be a stressful day because there are so many things you have to keep under control.”

Every year there’s a convention where schools can be nominated for hosting state speech. Kennedy hosted the contest two years ago, and depending on how this year goes, Kennedy might continue to host the contest every two years.

“It’s an advantage for us [to host it here],” Neff said. “Then we don’t have to take our equipment everywhere, and it’s an advantage also because then we get to promote Kennedy.”