York senior wins state title in ‘intellectually demanding’ speech event

By Jeff Vorva

She chose a subject she wasn’t all that familiar with.

She claimed her conclusion was “lackluster.”

Yet, despite all of that, York senior Skylar Adams became a state champion.

Adams won the Impromptu Speaking portion of the Illinois High School Association State Speech meet on Feb. 21 at the Peoria Civic Center.

The setup to announce state champions is dramatic, and Adams had finished second in the state in 2025 in the same event.

Minutes before the placers and champs were announced this year, she was feeling a little out of sorts.

“I feel like I was totally blacked out of that experience,” she said. “Usually, you are kind of nervous, but I was manically laughing before I went on stage because I was so anxious. I was anxious about getting dead last. I was anxious about getting first.

“But once my name was called, I was pretty happy. Then the nerves were gone.”

Her coach, Kevin Martin, was pretty happy, too.

 “Speech genuinely changed my life.”

– Sklyar Adams

“She’s a hard worker,” he said of Adams. “She was second in the state last year and wanted to win it this year. We’ve had state qualifiers, but she is the second champion since I’ve been coaching.”

In 2021, James Golen was a double winner as he won for Impromptu Speaking and Extemporaneous Speaking.

Impromptu Speaking is tough because a contestant has to choose from one of three topics, then has a few minutes to prepare, and then talk about that topic for six minutes.

Out of the three options, she chose to expound on the quote “Those who use force don’t have reason. She is still not sure why she chose that one.

“We have two minutes to prepare,” she said. “There have been scary times when you had nothing to say. I had never given a speech like this before. So, I was kind of like, ‘I’m at the state final, and I have to pretend I’m really confident.’

“When I got on stage, I felt a lot better about it then.”

Adams said she loves speech and calls it an “underrated” activity.

It was so underrated that when she walked through the doors of the Elmhurst school as a freshman, she had no idea it existed. She soon found out and joined up in her sophomore year.

“I didn’t even know the speech team was a thing,” Adams said. “But the York speech team is actually excellent. I had a friend who would always talk about it, and I knew that I liked talking. When I joined, I was really nervous at first, but it ended up being really awesome.”

School District Superintendent Keisha Campbell, left, congratulates Skylar Adams for her state championship in speech during a March board meeting.
Photo Courtesy of District 205

In recent years, the Dukes have done well as a team. Even though they did not make it to the top 10 this year, they finished 10^th in 2022, a program-best fourth in 2024, and 10^th again in 2025.

The school board was pretty impressed. She was honored at an Elmhurst Community Unit School District 205 meeting in March, and a proclamation in her honor said that her event was “one of the state’s most rigorous and intellectually demanding speech events.”

Adams is not sure if she will pursue speech in college, but she is not closing the door on it. She is undecided on a major or school, but her dream job is to be a college professor who could talk about something she is passionate about.

She cherishes her experiences with the speech team at York.

“Speech genuinely changed my life,” she said. “It helped me grow in my confidence. I made some friends and met some important people. Even without the state stuff, I was so happy to be a part of it.”