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Judges work on ballots in the hospitality room in Hensler Auditorium in Montana State University-Northern's Applied Technology Center Saturday in between rounds at the Class BC Speech, Debate and Drama State Tournament.
High school junior Caylee Stroder from Gardiner prepares for Lincoln-Douglas debate while waiting for judges to arrive. These students take very seriously their one-on-one debate about current topics at Montana State University Northern Saturday.
Allen Simpson from Geyser and Holly Rogers from Huntley Project play their guitars and sing a new song during lunch break at the Student Union Building Saturday at the Class BC Speech, Debate and Drama State Tournament at Montana State University-Northern. Simpson and Rogers said they had not met before the tournament last Friday and Saturday.
Hundreds of coaches, judges and students from all over Montana took over Montana State University-Northern's campus Friday and Saturday for the annual Class BC State Speech, Drama and Debate Tournament, hosted at Northern by Chinook High School.
The event took place one week after Havre High School hosted the Class A eastern divisional at Northern to qualify students for the Class A tourney in Laurel.
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Last weekend's event in Havre brought students like 18-year-old Isaac Rost all the way from Baker. Rost, who competes in impromptu speaking, said he arrived in Havre Thursday night.
In his event, the tournament provides the speakers with a cartoon or a quote and the speaker has three minutes to plan a speech. Then the speaker performs that speech for a judge.
Rost said about 4 p.m. Saturday that he had just finished competing in the semifinals. He was in the cafeteria, waiting to see if he made the finals, he said.
Rost said he's been accepted to Montana State University and wants to study chemical engineering. He said he thinks this experience might help him when it comes to communicating with people.
Not everyone was happy with the tournament. Kim Lindsey, a coach from Plentywood, said she was a little upset that students had been kicked out of Northern's cafeteria in the Student Union Building after lunch was over, and she thought the event had not been running smoothly.
"It's been very disorganized, we are an hour-and-a-half behind, and my kids have encountered some very unkind judges, and this facility has not been kind to the speech participants," she said.
But Jason Holden, who came from Great Falls to coach a small team of students from Great Falls Central Catholic High School, had the opposite reaction to the event.
"The city of Havre has been a tremendous host and it speaks highly of the university to host this very, very difficult strategic event," he said. "There's a lot of moving parts and the university has been wonderful."
Holden is a native Havreite and is now a lawyer in Great Falls.
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