Havre speech and debate takes wins at Power

Press release

The Havre High School speech and debate team again saw success with good scores and a first-place finish Saturday at the Power-Dutton/Simms invitational tournament, held in Power and Dutton.

“I was pretty happy with how our speakers did Saturday,” Havre head coach Tim Leeds said. “I am hoping we peak Saturday at the divisional tournament we are hosting at Montana State University-Northern and at state the following weekend in Laurel. I have high hopes for our team at state this year.”

Students from 18 schools including Havre and the hosts competed Saturday. Browning was unable to attend due to a road closure caused by whiteout conditions, leaving Havre as the only Class A school at the meet, but solid teams from Class B and C schools were competing, Leeds said.

Leading the way for Havre was four-year veteran Ethan Smith, who again received perfect scores in preliminary rounds in dramatic oral interpretation of literature and scored high marks in finals to take first in the event.

On the debate squad, the Havre team saw tough competition from teams as far away as West Yellowstone and Denton-Geyser-Stanford, as well as local competition from schools such as Fort Benton and Malta, but scored some wins in Dutton.

Senior Trent Smith went 2-1 at the tournament. In an ironic twist, he defeated the West Yellowstone debater who also went 2-1 but who edged Smith out in speaker points and broke into finals. The West Yellowstone debater defeated a Stanford debater, who gave Smith his only loss in preliminary rounds, to take first and put the Stanford debater in second. Smith ended up in third place Saturday.

Sophomore Kaleb Gardner also went 2-1 at Dutton and took fifth at the tournament, while junior Johnny Valadez went 1-2 and placed eighth.

Senior Jesse Riska also scored points for Havre, placing third in memorized public address, while sophomore Jayne Nelson took sixth in impromptu speaking and junior Brady Ophus took seventh in that event.

Leeds said the Class A superdivisional for 11 schools from the Central and Eastern divisions is nearly set up, although he added the coaching staff is still looking for some judges to rank students Saturday.

“Quite a few people have conflicts Saturday, and we are having some problems with people’s contact information changing. We don’t know how to get a hold of some of our previous judges,” he said. “We are hosting judging clinics (today) and Wednesday, both in the high school library at 6 p.m., and people can contact us if they would like to judge.”

Leeds said an online registration is available at the meet’s Facebook page at facebook.com/havredivisional or people can email him at [email protected] or call or text him at 406-552-9023 if they would like to volunteer or want more information.