Rehydrating corpses. Opera. School shootings. All these topics were discussed during “A Night of Active Voices!” UNI Speech hosted a performance by their nationally-ranked team in the Maucker Union Ballroom on Wednesday.

11 Speakers made speeches both impromptu and memorized, in just under an hour and a half.

The featured presentations created a line-up of speech methods such as: after dinner speaking, poetry interpretation, dramatic interpretation collage, impromptu speaking, informative speaking and prose interpretation.

“It’s about a variety of different topics. There’s one about racism and how you shouldn’t judge people based on race, and one about mother nature,” said Megan McFadden, freshman undecided major and member of the speech team.

Taking little to no break between performances, the speech team hurried to make their “active voices” heard. Some tried to persuade. Others tried to inform and all tried to entertain. Laughter echoed through the ballroom all night.Many of the speeches began on a light-hearted note, or a self-deprecating joke before turning to a much darker topic. A speech featuring the warping of masculinity in society to something violent, called “The Link Between Masculinity and School Shootings” began with the theme of underpaid teachers and the jokes rolled from there.

And UNI Speech drew some students who were looking to see how a college speech team performs. 

“I did speech in high school so it’s cool to see how it works at a higher level,” said Kyle Chaska, freshman biology major. 

UNI Speech goes to Portland, Oregon later this year for the American Forensics Association Nationals, as they have since 2011. This, evidently, also drew some students to the event.

“I know our speech team is really good. I’m expecting to be persuaded,” said Randy Andermann, sophomore communications major, as he noted their recent awards and qualification to AFA.

UNI Speech has consistently placed in the top 10 at AFA Nationals. Only time will tell if that streak continues for another year.