Polson High forensics qualifiers head to state meet
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News from Polson High School speech and debate
LIBBY — Six Polson High School speech and debate competitors qualified for the state Montana Class A Speech and Drama Meet. The state meet will be held in Columbia Falls on Jan. 30 and 31.
PHS state qualifiers were:
• First place, Serious Oral Interpretation of Literature — Jordan Broussard
• Fourth place, Policy Debate — Annabelle Smith and Shannon McGinnis
• Fourth place, Lincoln-Douglas Debate —Kenyon Cairns
• Sixth place, Serious Oral Interpretation of Literature — Kania Smith
• Seventh place, Memorized Public Address — Alex Salois
• Seventh place, Original Oratory — Ghanima des Lions
“I am so happy for Jordan,” Jon Petersen, head coach for PHS said. “She has had a tremendous amount of bad luck this season, losing tie-breaker coin flips, missing final rounds by one place, and so on. I kept telling her eventually her luck would change. Well, she didn’t need any luck this time—she earned her championship on skill alone.”
Petersen also praised his debaters, saying, “The debaters really performed well this weekend. I think Annabelle, Shannon, and Kenyon have a very good chance to be medalists at the state meet next weekend. We are going work real hard this week to make sure that happens.”
Polson speech competitors finished fourth in team placing, with Columbia Falls High School taking first place. In drama, Libby High School pulled down first place.
This is Libby’s last year competing in Class A; the Loggers will be moving to Class B during the 2015-16 school year.
This was also the last year that the long-standing divisional format was used for seeding competitors for the state meet, Petersen said. A new format will be determined in the spring. Most schools favor a “straight-to-state” format in which each team would automatically qualify three competitors in each event for the state meet. Another option would be to have two “super-divisional” tournaments (western and eastern) to seed competitors.
“I don’t think the coaches or activity directors really understand how difficult it would be to adopt the ‘straight-to-state’ format. The state meet would be so huge that most Class A school districts would not be able to host it. Also, not having the competitors seeded prior to the meet would frankly be a logistics nightmare,” Petersen said. “Finally, I think kids should have to earn their way into the state meet by going through a divisional or super-divisional tournament. There is an element of honor in being a divisional qualifier.”
