Jackson teacher, coach receives national speech, debate, theater educator award

Jackson High School speech teacher Bob Clubbs was honored over the weekend with an award from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).

During the Missouri State High School Activities Association (MSHSAA) state speech, debate and theater championships in Springfield, Clubbs was presented with the NFHS Speech, Debate and Theatre Association Outstanding Educator Award for Missouri, and described the moment as a "culmination of (his) career."

"This is year 23 for me and it just made me spend a lot of time reflecting on my past students, those that I’ve kept in touch with and I know where they are in their lives," Clubbs said. "So many of them have told me that their experiences in high school with speech and debate were meaningful to them and are helpful to them in different ways. It’s just been really gratifying to receive that recognition."

Clubbs — a native of Malden — said he was lucky when beginning his career at Jackson as the school already had an established speech and debate program.

Clubbs has coached Jackson’s speech, debate and theater team since he began his teaching tenure in 2001. During his time in the role, Clubbs has coached two state champions — Audrey Stanfield, who won in the radio speaking category in 2006, and Gio Mayfield-Wubbena, who won the storytelling title in 2021.

"I am one of the only full-time speech and theater people in Southeast Missouri, and that’s thanks to the folks that came before me," Clubbs said. "Most of the folks that are speech and debate coaches in our area are also English teachers or they’re social studies teachers and some are school librarians. I’m fortunate that it’s something that I had a background in and something that I did when I was in high school. ... I was active in my speech and debate team in high school, so I know how important it is for the kids because it was important to me."

This year, five of Clubbs’ students qualified for the state competition, including Ian Kelley in the U.S. extemporaneous speaking category, Kathryn Petzoldt for poetry reading, Petzoldt and Price Belmar for duo interpretation, Nelson McGuire for dramatic interpretation and Rileigh Sander for prose reading. Clubbs said his current non-senior students are already looking toward next year.

"They’re already thinking about next season and they’re wanting me to help them pick their scenes, or their stories, or their speech topics for next year," Clubbs said. "This is kind of an ongoing process. I think the thing that I like best about it is just seeing the kids grow and develop over the course of their high school careers. You’re seeing them gain confidence, gain skills and just really take ownership of it. Some of the kids that are really self-motivated do most of the legwork themselves, and then I get to help them refine, help give them suggestions and basically be the stand-in for the audience until they have an audience."

In addition to helping students gain valuable skills, Clubbs said it’s just as rewarding talking to his former students and hearing stories about using the skills they learned from his class, and the speech and debate team, in their everyday lives.

"I had a girl the other day just talk about how she feels like she has been able to inspire her kids’ love of reading and literature because when she reads aloud for them, she does all the character voices and everything like she used to do for storytelling," Clubbs said with a chuckle. "Whatever they’re doing, when I talk to them they love to talk about how they feel like their experience in speech and debate has translated over into their lives."