Debate skills propel pair to success

University leaders credit high school speech training

Five high-school teams from the Flathead Valley are vying today for state titles in speech and debate. Many students are focused solely on their events, but even while they concentrate on the next round, they are practicing skills they'll use forever.

Few know this better than former speech and debate competitors who have been surprised to discover how relevant the experience was.

Two former Flathead team members have drawn on their speech and debate experiences to fuel their college careers.

Shane Colvin and Trevor Hunter both credit speech and debate with helping them become the student body presidents at Montana's largest universities.

Colvin, who graduated in 2003, and Hunter, a 2005 graduate, lead the student bodies at Montana State University and the University of Montana, respectively. They use the skills they learned as debaters nearly every day.

"The mock session - but real skills - in debate have now shown their real-world connection that I've drawn upon, and that I'm sure Shane has drawn upon, too," Hunter said.

Colvin agreed.

"Over the past six years, I have definitely employed that on more number of occasions than I can count," he said.

Colvin, who went to Flathead his last two years of high school after being home-schooled all his life, competed in Policy Debate his senior year. He is "naturally a debater," but he started out in Serious Oral Interpretation.

In that event, students recite selections from literature with a serious theme. Colvin was attracted to the powerful impact a speaker could have on an audience.

"I thought I could be all dramatic and make people cry," he said. "I found very quickly it really wasn't for me."

Policy Debate, a two-person event, was a much better fit, he said. He and his partner had a season-high fifth-place finish at a tournament at Gonzaga University and competed at the state meet.

"It was quite an experience to be in the company of state champions, people who could articulate their thoughts far better than I could," Colvin said.

The high point of his season came at a tournament in Butte, when he was given the Flathead Pride Award. The prize goes to students who are examples for the rest of the team, Colvin said.

"It was very honoring to get that," he said.

Kala Lougheed, Colvin's former teammate and Flathead's current head coach, remembers him as a diligent and enthusiastic debater.

"He would spend a ton of time doing all this research and find this one, crazy little fact he would want to share with everybody," she said. "He worked really hard and had a lot of enthusiasm."

Glacier High head coach Greg Adkins has similar memories of Colvin.

"He was such a diligent, committed, dedicated kid," Adkins said. "To see the success he has had in college didn't surprise me at all."

Hunter's success is equally unsurprising to Adkins, who was the head coach at Flathead when each young man was on the team.

"He's one of those really silent kind of leaders who everybody looks up to and respects," Adkins said of Hunter. "He's just a great kid."

Hunter's silent leadership made his participation in debate a surprise to many, said Ivana Fritz, Hunter's former Legislative Debate coach and a current coach at Glacier.

"He wasn't the stereotype speech-and-debater. He was always very quiet in class," she said. "His teachers would say, 'Really? Trevor's in debate?'"

Hunter joined the team his sophomore year, determined from the start to be a legislative debater, which is typically a varsity-only event, he said.

"I was fortunate to get to learn from juniors and seniors and get to learn that event," he said.

He learned it well. Hunter was a state champion two years in a row and competed in the national tournament his senior year. The key to his success - passionately arguing his point - has since proved invaluable.

He and Colvin will rely heavily on the techniques they learned in debate during this legislative session, when they will address lawmakers on behalf of several bills related to higher education. Representing their student bodies in Helena is part of their role as presidents.

"Trevor and I both will have to use all of our debating and presentation skills in trying to get dollars from the state to support higher education," Colvin said.

"Without seasoned students talking about the importance of higher education, we would be in dire, dire straits."

Hunter, who believes strongly in education, agreed.

"I have to be passionate about what I'm saying when I'm testifying," he said. "Passion, devotion and really being serious about what you do is the key to success that I've found."

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com