2008 Woodie Awards
Coach teaches from firsthand speech team experience
Instructor spends at least 27 hours week with speech team members.
By Heather K. Robinson
Last update: 5/17/06 at 8:20 AM CST
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"I felt a lot like my students do - spit it out and get out," she said. "Now, I'm up front with them about my feelings; I tell them if they would just turn around and not look at me, everything would be great."
A lot of people have the same fears about speaking publicly, and trying to overcome them requires acknowledging that everyone around them is nervous, too, she said. Students just need a little confidence, she believes.
For team member Melanie Peay, confidence came by pretending spectators were not in the crowd. "We would go into the auditorium and focus on taking away what scared me," Peay recalled. Ramsey coaches from experience. She was a member of the team from 1992-98.
"She has great credibility with all of her students because she tells them in a sense of been there, done that," said Jeff Hunt, theater and speech communication chair.
A sense of commitment and a need to give back lured her to the college to work with the team. Ramsey's office in McAllister Fine Arts Center showcases glass bead butterflies, bracelets and a tie she learned how to tie, all mementos of demonstration speeches.
She has assembled yearly scrapbooks crammed with snapshots of the speech team on trips to competitions.
One of the secrets of winning teams is preparation, a lesson Ramsey stresses to speech team go-getters as well as struggling students in her classes.
Ramsey spends at least 27 hours a week in appointments with team members giving individual forensic advice on delivery and the speech structure.
On 10 weekends a year, she drives members to competitions. A lot of the weekends left are consumed by "work days" where members focus on practicing and preparing for tournaments.
She is responsible for filling out the mounds of paperwork required before and after tournaments. To her, talent ranks second behind a good work ethic.
Having open-minded members who work well with people is what it takes to create a winning team.
"Students feed you, and you latch on to their energy. If they're giving me the energy that they want to learn, I can't say no to them; it gives me the oomph to continue," she said.
Misty Popovich, an English lecturer who was on the speech team in 2001, remembers squeezing in nine hours at this college in addition to 18 hours at the University of Texas at San Antonio, just to participate on the team.
"I didn't want to be on just anyone's team," she said. "I wanted to work with her."
Last spring, while Popovich and Ramsey were shopping for costumes for a reader's theater, they saw a sale on skirts and dresses, and Ramsey purchased outfits for two members who didn't have the money to buy them for an upcoming tournament.
"She sees in people what they don't even see in themselves," Popovich said.
In a summer public speaking course taught by Ramsey, the students munched on "monkey rolls," the remnants of a demonstration speech on how to make homemade cinnamon rolls, while listening to her advice on tailoring visual aids to fit the occasion.
She explained that props should enhance, never replace, the speaker.
"The speaker is the master of the information," she warned without a trace of nervousness in her voice.
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