Payton Taylor is a senior on ADM’s speech team. Recently she was nominated for the Heart of the Art award, which celebrates students’ involvement in not only speech, but also in the community, academics, and athletics. It is to honor her commitment to speech throughout high school, as well as her contributions to the school and community.
“It’s about more than just speech, it’s about you as a person,” Taylor said.
Multiple people from each state are nominated for the award, and then the state winners are submitted to be possible regional winners. There are seven regions across the country, which each consist of seven different states. Taylor won the award between all of the Iowa nominees and then went on to win the region as well.
“It was all Mrs. Seidl,” said Taylor. “She recommended me. She did all of it. I had no idea this was even an award. I had no idea this was even a thing, and it’s the first one our school has ever had as a winner, for the state or for the region.”
Taylor has competed in both individual and team speech and has been a member of the speech team for all four years. She was also a part of the speech program in middle school, which unfortunately ended early due to the pandemic. She made it to state for both her individual and group speeches, competing in the reader’s theater group, and individually competing a piece about the recent passing of her mother.
“It was just a meeting wrapping up the season. I thought nothing of it because the season is almost over and our banquet is in a couple of weeks, but I saw her, and I was like, this is not right,” said Taylor.
During a power hour, which Taylor was told was just an average speech meeting, the head of the Iowa Speech Department made an appearance to give Taylor the award in person. She had no idea that she was being submitted as a nominee for the award at all.
“It was a very big surprise,” said Taylor. “But I knew something was up when I walked in and the head of Iowa Speech was standing there and I was like ok I knew it wasn’t just a meeting.”
Taylor has had many accomplishments and contributions to ADM’s speech team throughout her four years in the program. She is one of the two students competing at All State Speech this year, along with Brenna Seidl. Her favorite part about speech is the community and the people she gets to do it with.
“It’s my favorite. I love it. It gets me with a new group of people and it’s different from sports because those sports practices I’m dreading. Like I don’t want to run or I don’t want to do this but speech is a time to be yourself and be creative. So I love going to practice,” said Taylor.
