Havre speech wins home tournament

Editor’s note: This version corrects some incorrect information on the placings in public forum debate.

Press release

The Havre High School speech and debate team saw success at its first tournament of the season, handily winning the Class A speech sweepstakes trophy at its own invitational at Havre High School Saturday.

“This is a great start to the season,” head coach Tim Leeds said. “We have lost a lot of speakers to graduation the last few years but are building back well this season and the kids did a great job Saturday.“

Havre won the Class A sweeps with 72 points. Former Central Division rival Browning High School, which is now competing in the Class A division in the northwest but came to compete in Havre, took second with 25 points.

Leading the way for Havre was a third-year Lincoln-Douglas debater, junior Kaleb Gardner. Gardner went undefeated, beating Simms debaters in the first and second rounds and a debater from Denton-Geyser-Stanford in the third preliminary round, then winning all three ballots in the finals against, a rematch of the third round against the Denton-Geyser-Stanford debater.

Senior Johnny Valadez, a fourth-year competitor for Havre who switched from impromptu speaking to debate partway through last season, took third for Havre in L-D debate, and freshman LillieAnn Mecklenburg, competing at her first tournament, took sixth,

Havre had three teams of public forum debaters who all competed for the first time Saturday. The Havre squad were the only competitors in the event, in its second year in Class A and not an official event in the BC ranks, and did a round-robin against each other.

Freshmen Joram Randolph and Noah Teasley took first in the event, with junior Eric Harrison and freshman Xavier Ulano taking second and juniors Tony Antley and Jack Johnsrud placing third.

Second year competitor Jayne Nelson, a junior, also scored points for Havre with a fifth-place finish in impromptu speaking.

Havre next travels to the Conrad High School invitational Nov. 11.

Leeds said that, thanks to the help from the community, the Havre invitational went very smoothly.

“With things that have happened over the last few weeks and months and conflicting events Saturday, people had a lot on their plate during our tournament, but people stepped up to judge and we had no problems,” Leeds said. “I can’t thank the community members enough. We can’t put on these competitions and the kids would not be able to get the experience without their help.”