Havre speech team inviting people to judge at Nov. 2 tournament

Press release

Havre High School’s speech and debate team is hosting its invitational tournament next week, and inviting people who are interested in judging to contact the coaches.

“This is looking to be a really good year for us,” head coach Tim Leeds said. “We had a lot of kids come out for the tournament this year, and we think we will make a strong showing at our home tournament and continue that through the season.”

Leeds said 12 teams had registered for the Saturday, Nov. 2, tournament as of this morning, and several more have been invited and still may register.

That could lead to a large need for judges, Leeds said.

“We have been contacting our judge list, and as always, are having a great response with a lot of support,” he said. “We usually still have hours we need to fill, though, especially at 2 p.m. when we typically need extra judges because three are used per event in that round.”

He said he knows the team has lost touch with some of its regular judges due to them switching phone numbers or emails, and has lost some judges with people moving away or, sadly, passing away.

“If people expected us to contact them to judge and we have missed them, they could give me a call or text or email me or use our online judge registration form,” Leeds said.

He said the team will hold a judging clinic in the Havre High School library Wednesday, Oct. 30, at 6:30 p.m. and people can contact him with any questions.

Leeds said the tournament will have rounds at 9 and 10:30 a.m., noon and 2 p.m. and is offering competition in all Class A and Class BC events.

That includes drama events, where the students act out dramatic scenes, sometimes in costume and with props.

The speech events include memorized speeches, interpretation of literature and events where the students are given a topic each round and have to prepare an original speech in a limited amount of time.

Three debate events, two with teams of two and one that is one-on-one, where the students directly debate each other, also are offered.

The full listing of events, Leeds said, is pantomime, duo classic theatre, solo humourous acting and dramating acting, duo humorous acting and dramatic acting for the drama events.

The memorized speeches are original oratory, informative, memorized public address.

Interpretation of literature includes humorous interpretation, dramatic interpretation and spontaneous interpretation, and the short preparation speeches are impromptu abdextemporaneous.

Debate has a team policy debate, a team public forum debate and a Lincoln-Douglas debate.

Leeds said people can contact him or assistant coach Havre High English teacher Jared Smith to sign up or for more information.

Leeds added that people can email him at [email protected] or call or text him at 552-9023

People also can sign up to judge online at http://bit.ly/Havrespeech2019 .