Speakers qualify for national competition
Eleven Flathead Valley high school students won spots at the National Forensic League national tournament after performing well at the district speech and debate meet in Missoula on Saturday.
Five students from Flathead High and six from Glacier High earned the right to compete at the national meet June 13 through 18 in Kansas City, Mo.
It will be Flathead senior Maxine Sugarman’s second trip to nationals. Sugarman, who finished second in Extemporaneous Speaking and fourth in Impromptu Speaking at the state speech and debate meet in Bozeman two weeks ago, will compete at the national tournament in International Extemporaneous.
Tierney Strandberg, a Flathead junior and Kalispell’s lone Class AA state champion — she won in Original Oratory and Memorized Public Address — will compete at nationals in Original Oratory.
Flathead senior Kyle Decker will compete in Humorous Interpretation, an event in which he finished fourth at state. Juniors Emily Stoick and Sam Watson, who finished in fourth and seventh place, respectively, in Lincoln-Douglas Debate at state, will compete in that event at nationals.
“We are incredibly proud of these five wonderful and talented competitors and looking forward to a great national tournament in June,” Flathead head coach Kala Lougheed said. “Qualifying five to nationals was a great ending to an exciting season.”
Flathead finished third at the state tournament, five points behind second-place Glacier. Bozeman High School won the state meet.
Glacier senior Cory Markellis and junior Caroline Houser will compete at nationals in Dramatic Interpretation. Houser finished third in Serious Oral Interpretation and Memorized Public Address at state.
Mary Snipstead is the other senior who will compete at nationals.
Snipstead took second place in Lincoln-Douglas Debate at state and will compete in Student Congress-Senate at the national meet.
Juniors Ashley Berger and Lauren Jones will compete in Policy Debate.
Tanner Maroney is the lone freshman to make it to the national finals. He will compete in Humorous Interpretation.
“Nice way to end the season for the Wolfpack. Six qualifiers is pretty impressive,” Glacier head coach Greg Adkins said. He added that he is “always really excited for those kids who qualify and always [feels] the heartbreak for those students whose high school speech and debate careers ended today.”
Students from Columbia Falls, the five-time Class A state champions, competed at the district meet in Missoula.
Six Columbia Falls students made semifinals, and two made it to finals.
None qualified for national finals, but two students — Stephanie Christensen and Candance Ward-Shears — placed high enough to become alternates in Original Oratory and Dramatic Interpretation, respectively.
Christensen won a state title in Original Oratory and Ward-Shears finished third in Serious Oral Interpretation and sixth in Humorous Oral Interpretation.
“Our kids enjoyed competing against the level of competition you get at NFL, specifically against the AA programs across the state, and we were proud of the fact that the other Class A programs combined only placed one competitor in semis and none in finals,” head coach Michael Christensen said.
Other alternates for the national NFL tournament include:
n From Flathead: Hannah Wilson and Hannah Wahlert, first alternates Student Congress-House; Hannah Anderson, alternate U.S. Extemporaneous; Jason Ritchie and Kenzie Weber, fourth alternates Student Congress-House; Hunter Lapp, sixth alternate Student Congress-House; Barry Sugarman, sixth alternate Student Congress-Senate.
n From Glacier: Logan Warberg and Montana Ziglar, first alternates Public Forum Debate; Cory Markellis and Clayton McDougall, second alternates Duo Interpretation; Abby Connolly, second alternate Original Oratory; Ariel Berg, alternate Student Congress-Senate; Andora Tutvedt, second alternate Student Congress-House; John Patrick, third alternate Student Congress-House.