Valley touts multiple state champs

What a wild weekend it was for our local speech and debate teams.

Here in the Flathead, both the state Class A tournament staged in Whitefish and the state Class B/C tourney in Bigfork were challenged by lengthy power outages caused by unusually strong winds on Saturday. Luckily, this is a group of people that knows a lot about extemporaneous and impromptu responses, and the teams persevered, using some creative finesse to get the job done.

And boy, did they persevere. The Columbia Falls team reeled in its 15th consecutive Class A title to keep its dynasty status intact, and Whitefish garnered a solid second-place finish. Bigfork grabbed fourth place in the Class B-C.

Meanwhile, in Bozeman at the Class AA tournament, Flathead High School Speech and Debate took home the gold, with Glacier in third.

We’re so proud of each and every one of our young performers. Their months of hard work and dedication paid off with outstanding results.

High praise is also due for a few of the valley’s local Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts.

As we reported last week, Kalispell RoboScouts, a robotics team made up of Girl Scout Troop 3709 members, are the Montana State FIRST Lego League champions. With the win, they will compete on the world stage in April.

The team develops, designs, builds and codes Lego robots to perform autonomous missions.

Meanwhile, six Boy Scouts from Kalispell’s Troop 1973 have simultaneously earned the rank of Eagle Scout. Less than 7% of Scouts reach this status, which requires completion of a community service project.

The exceptional achievements of these boys and girls give us great confidence in tomorrow’s leaders.