Havre speakers come close at national qualifier

Press release

Havre High School speech and debate traveled to Billings over the weekend to try to qualify for the National Speech and Debate Association’s national tournament, and some of the Blue Ponies almost made the cut.

“I was hoping to take some students to Lousiville, Kentucky, in June for nationals and we almost did,” Havre head speech and debate coach Tim Leeds said, “but I can’t say enough about how well our students did. This has top competitors from all classes of schools in the state, and it’s tough competition. Our kids all did well.

Third-year Havre Lincoln-Douglas debater Paige Bertelsen, a junior, went 3-2 in the guaranteed preliminary rounds and ended up in a debate-off to figure who went in as the top eight competitors in the event to fight for the three qualifying positions.

Bertelsen lost a close round against a Billings West debater, and ended in ninth place at the tournament.

Seniors Dartanion Kaftan, a fourth-year debater, and his partner, Riley Klein, debating his second year for Havre, went 2-3 at the tournament, losing a very close fifth round in which the judge complimented both sides of the debate and wrote to Kaftan and Klein that it came down to one closely fought issue.

If Kaftan and Klein had won that round, they also would have broken into the outrounds that determined which three teams traveled to nationals.

Havre’s other debaters, the public forum team of junior Caitlyn “Corbyn” Ehry and sophomore Carinna Kline and junior Sterling Shelton in Lincoln-Douglas, all first-year competitors, went 1-4 at the national qualifier.

Junior Sophia Dawson in programmatic oral interpretation of literature and freshman Izabelle “Izzy” Hagen, both first-year competitors, received good comments in some of their rounds but did not make the cut to outrounds.

The Havre students were among 223 competitors from 18 schools vying for a trip to nationals.