Havre speech and debate takes first in Chester

Special to the Daily News

The Havre High School speech and debate team again saw success over the weekend with a first-place finish at Saturday’s Chester/Joplin-Inverness and North Star schools’ cooperative tournament in Chester.

All 17 Blue Ponies competing at the tournament added points to Havre’s 128-point team finish.

In a round-robin team debate competition, Trenton Parrotte and Trenton Smith defeated their teammates, Amelia Beard and Nic Tanner, and a Power-Dutton-Brady team to take first.

Beard and Tanner also defeated the Power-Dutton-Brady team and placed second.

In Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Jacob Bachmeier and Caitlyn Acuff each went 3-0 in preliminary rounds then squared off against each other in the finals round. Bachmeier won the debate on a split decision, 2-1, to take first and Acuff ended up in second.

In serious oral interpretation of literature, Ethan Smith was one point short of perfect marks in his first-place finish. Smith earned perfect scores from the preliminary round judges and from two of the three finals round judges.

Mina Everingham was right behind him in her second-place finish in serious interp, also earning a perfect mark in prelims and one in finals.

Brandon Bergren placed second for Havre in impromptu speaking, with teammate Patrick Leeds taking second in the event. Each of them earned one first-place finish in preliminary rounds and each took one first from a finals judge.

Esther Stocker also earned a second-place finish for Havre, in original oratory, with Desiree Bachmeier taking fifth in that event.

Randi Ruhkamp took third in humorous oral interpretation of literature, including one first-place ranking in preliminary rounds, and Amanda Viall took sixth in that event.

Jesse Riska placed fourth in memorized public address, while Josiah Stocker took sixth in that competition.

Rounding out the scores for Havre was Kristen Belcourt, who placed fifth in expository speaking.

The Havre team has a week off for Thanksgiving, followed by a two-day Class A tournament in Corvallis Dec. 5-6 then another two-day tournament at the Class AA invitational in Great Falls Dec. 12-13.