Havre speech wins at Conrad invitational meet

Press release

Taking a small team once again due to conflicting events, the Havre High School speech and debate team was still able to squeak out another first-place finish in the Class A competition.

With only three Blue Ponies competing in the registered events at the tournament, Havre took first with 15 points.

Class A rival Browning High School took second with 10 points.

Havre was one of 19 schools at the event, with teams coming from as far as Stanford/Geyser, White Sulphur Springs, Harlowton and Twin Bridges, along with Browning and other Class B and Class C schools from north-central Montana.

“I’m very happy with how we did,” Havre head coach Tim Leeds said. “This was a very competitive tournament and we brought a small, young team and still were able to take first.

“With some conflicting events out of the way, the team should be even stronger as we go down the season,” Leeds said. “We lost some competitors to events including students directing and acting in the fine production of one-act plays the Havre High drama department put on this weekend, but those students have been practicing hard and when they come back, we should be doing even better at tournaments.”

At Conrad, first-year Blue Pony humorous interpretation of literature speaker Elaine Atkinson, competing at her third tournament, took two first-place and one second-place finishes in the three guaranteed preliminary rounds. She broke into the finals round in first place. In finals, she tied with third-year veteran humorous interp Heydon Massar of Rudyard’s North Star High School. Massar won a tie-breaking procedure and Atkinson brought home a second-place finish.

Informative speaker Melanie Veith, competing in her second tournament, also did well in preliminary rounds including one second-place finish. She ended up in fourth place after the final round.

Jerzy Borowiecki, competing in Lincoln-Douglas debate at his second tournament, went 0-3 against tough competition from North Star, White Sulphur Springs and Browning high schools.

Two veteran debaters from Malta closed out finals in LD debate to battle for first and second place.

Class BC tournaments do not offer public forum debate, but Conrad High School offered a room for the Havre High public forum teams, Joram Randolph and Noah Teasley and Simon Hart and Xavier Ulano, to debate each other for three rounds. Hart and Ulano won two of the rounds and Randolph and Teasley won one.

Havre next travels to Chester this weekend for the CJI invitational tournament.