Havre speech wins at Great Falls Central

Press release

The Havre High School speech and debate team again took a small team to a highly competitive tournament hosted by Great Falls Central High School, and still scored enough points to bring home a Class A team trophy.

Havre won the Class A competition with Butte Central High School taking second.

“This was really close, and I am glad our students were able to pull it off,” head coach Tim Leeds said. “If we can continue this level of performance, we should be able to finish the year strongly.

“I am hoping we can get our full team ready for divisionals and qualify all of them for state this year,” Leeds added.

Along with Havre, host Great Falls Central and Butte Central speakers, students from AA schools Great Falls High School and C.M. Russell High School and 11 other Class BC schools were at the meet. Rounds were held both at Great Falls Central and University of Providence in Great Falls.

First-year informative speaking competitor Melanie Vieth, a freshman, had her best showing of the season. Vieth did well in the preliminary rounds, breaking into the finals round and taking fourth.

Sophomore Elaine Atkinson, also a first-year competitor for the Blue Ponies, continued her strong showings in highly competitive humorous oral interpretation of literature. Atkinson scored well in the preliminary rounds, breaking into finals and taking fourth at the tournament.

First-year policy debate team LillieAnn Mecklenburg, a sophomore in her second year on the team, and Dartanion Kaftan, a freshman, took fifth.

Senior Kaleb Gardner, a fourth-year veteran for the Blue Ponies, took seventh in Lincoln-Douglas debate.

Havre also took some new debaters and debaters, whose partners had conflicts, to observe at the tournament.

The team next travels Saturday to the Power-Dutton/Simms invitational tournament, then to the two-day eastern divisional tournament in Laurel Jan. 18-19 to face the other Class A speech teams form the eastern half of the state.

The top 12 divisional finishers in each category will qualify to compete at the state tournament, Jan. 25-26 in Belgrade.