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Columbiana student places 9th in national speech tournament
COLUMBIANA
An area high-schooler proved to be among the best speech students in the country after taking ninth place at the National Speech and Debate Tournament in Birmingham, Ala.
Michael Vargo, 18, of Columbiana, was ranked the ninth best speech student in his category nationally at the annual tournament. Earlier this year, he ranked second at the state speech tournament in Cleveland.
Vargo was a member of a 10-student national team from Columbiana High School coached by Trisha Nord.
Competing in the “United States Extemp” category, Vargo was given 30 minutes to develop and prepare a seven-minute speech on a topic related to U.S. politics. He created and performed four speeches each day of the tournament for a total of 12 speeches. He was successful through the semifinals of the tournament. There were 240 other speakers in his category.
This was Vargo’s first national tournament. He has been on the speech team for four years.
Though Vargo was happy to place well nationally, he is equally proud of his teammates.
“We have a small school with a team of 30 kids, but we placed within the top 40 speech schools in the nation,” Vargo said.
This fall Vargo will begin his studies at Ohio State University in Columbus, where he’ll pursue a double major in international studies and civil engineering and a double minor in French and city/regional planning.
Due to his academic workload Vargo is unsure if he’ll continue to pursue speech at the collegiate level this fall. In the meantime, he’s spending his summer passing along the skills he’s picked up from his time on the team to younger students.
“This summer I’m mostly going to be hanging around and reading to prepare for school,” he said. “But I’ve also been helping in some support functions for the team, mostly coaching the younger members.”