After a season of traveling and fierce competitions, Las Positas College’s Talk Hawks returned home to host Speech Night, the team’s annual end-of-year showcase in the Mertes Center for the Arts. The event featured humor, personal stories, researched presentations and impromptu speeches.
Audience members filled most of the seats before the lights dimmed and performances began.
The night also carried a special weight with the return of Kiarra Bautista, a former Talk Hawk member and Express staff writer, who was paralyzed from the neck down in a car accident last December. It was her first public appearance at LPC after four months in recovery. As she entered the lobby, friends and mentors gathered to greet her with hugs and tears of joy.
Speech Night served as the team’s grand finale, and one last chance to show off months of hard work, in front of a full house. Performers rotated through categories delivering competition-level orations, ranging from rapid-fire impromptu speeches to dramatic monologues.
The showcase followed a season shaped by success and hardship. The Talk Hawks won a gold medal at nationals for the third consecutive year despite a smaller roster after Bautista’s accident.
“Given the way that this particular year went, having a tragedy that occurred midway through, it changed priorities and focus for a lot of people,” said Jim Dobson, communications studies professor and Talk Hawks coach. “And yet we were still able to maintain a high level, even though the team shrunk considerably.”
TALK HAWKS SPEECH NIGHT featured Scout Del Real, left, presenting a selection of poetry that highlighted the transgender experience; Claire Aguiar, center, pulling out a caricature of the Le Monde newspaper; and Kiana Porr wrapping up Speech Night with a humorous after dinner speech on the fetishization of Asian women at the LPC Mertes Center for the Arts on May 8, 2026. (Photo by Eric Liang/The Express)
Speech night offered a rare chance for the team to perform before a massive audience without the pressure of tournaments or judges. Dobson estimated the audience at about 350 people, bringing attendance back to levels seen before the coronavirus pandemic.
“It was my first time going to something like this,” Mechanical Engineering major Valentino Cantu said. “The speeches were amazing and really compelling, and you could tell how much time and effort the speech team put into it.”
Students enrolled in communication courses could attend for extra credit, while others came to learn more about the Forensics Team.
“Professor Dobson said that I can write my own poetry and perform it for the speech team,” English major Nadiana Roy said. “That’s what excites me the most. I think it’ll be a lot of fun.”
The lineup included dramatic prose and poetry interpretations, witty after-dinner speeches, a research-based presentation and an impromptu speech prompted by audience suggestions.
Dashsa Spivak set the tone with a prose interpretation. Kloe Situ gave an informative speech on neutrinos, while Claire Aguiar kept the energy high with her own after-dinner speech.
Isha Roy showed nerves of steel, presenting an impromptu speech on “Am I the a — hole for talking to my ex?” with only two minutes of preparation. Millie Springborn gave a sharp prose interpretation, and Scout Del Real’s poetry interpretation left the room speechless. Kiana Porr pulled double duty with a prose interpretation and concluded the night with an after-dinner speech on the fetishization of Asian women.
By the end of the night, the showcase became a celebration of a team that traveled, competed, laughed, cried and came home to a full room of people watching.
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TOP PHOTO: Tim Heisler, left, and Ishar Roy of Forensics react to a shocking comment from the audience during Roy’s impromptu speech during the LPC Talk Hawks Speech Night at the Mertes Center for the Arts on May 8, 2026. (Photo by Eric Liang/The Express)
Kian Amininejad is the Senior Staff Writer of The Express. Follow him on X @Kian_Amininejad.
