As the new calendar year begins, the Speech, Drama, and Debate season comes closer to an end. While the State meet might be the most important meet to the team, it is usually never the biggest. Over the first weekend of January, the team spent Friday afternoon and all-day Saturday at Skyview High School, competing with 38 other schools from all over Montana in one of the biggest meets of the season.
“I have never been to a meet as big as this one,” said freshman Vivian Hastings. Hastings and her partner, Sahara Small, compete in the dramatic theater event. Together, the duo has to memorize a very serious skit that deals with a dramatic topic and then perform the piece as a pair with the help of props and costumes. Dramatic theater is part of the Drama section of Speech, Drama, and Debate. “There were lots of people and schools involved,” Hastings recalls.
Most meets take an entire Saturday, and there are only a handful of two-day meets in the season. After a while, many competitors started to become very drained, and they found it hard to concentrate on the meet. “What I found most difficult for this long meet,” Sahara Small said, “is staying in a competitive mindset for such a long time.”
For some members of the team, the Skyview meet was very long and stressful, but for seniors like Gwen Lague, it was very familiar. “I’ve done quite a few two day meets,” explained Lague. “They were very common my freshman and sophomore years.” Lague has been on the Drama team for all four years of high school. Her freshman and sophomore years, she participated in dramatic theater. In her junior and senior years, she has competed in dramatic solo and classical theater. While this was her first meet at Skyview, Lague has been to other meets that might have been bigger. “West has hosted some pretty big ones,” she said. She placed 4th overall in dramatic solo at Skyview.
While the meet might have been longer than usual and the team competed against class AA teams, Danielle Tate, the speech coach for the last 14 years, says she likes the bigger meets “because its better competition.” This is, however, the first time the Central team has gone to Skyview for a meet since Tate started coaching.
As overwhelming as the meet was, freshmen dramatic theater partners Hastings and Small were able to take 2nd place in dramatic theatre at Skyview. Hastings is proud of their placement “because we have kept consistent in our scoring.” Her partner, Small agreed, but added, “There’s always room for improvement no matter your placement.”
Overall, it was a good meet for the Speech, Debate, and Drama team. The Speech and Debate team was able to win 1st place overall among the Class A schools at the Skyview meet.
