Recently, Billings Central hosted the Speech and Drama Class A Eastern Divisionals Tournament. It was a valuable experience for both the coaches and competitors across the State. All of the coaches—Ashley Nelson, Danielle Tate, Nick Mack, and Ana-Brit Story—worked hard during both the preparation leading up to Divisionals and during Divisionals.
Speech coach Mrs. Danielle Tate and Junior Vivian Hastings take a picture together after a meet. (Courtesy)
Nelson, the Head Drama Coach, discussed her role behind the scenes during Divisionals saying, “Throughout the day you are running around and fixing things, so it is a lot of work, and we need a lot of volunteers.” To host a Divisionals Tournament requires many contributions including bus drivers, judges, and many other people. For this tournament, Head Speech Coach Tate alongside Nelson and the two Assistant Coaches, Story and Mack, were responsible for finding and managing 140 judges to participate during the two-day Tournament and filing paperwork and registration.
During the tournament, Mack felt confident in all of Billings Central’s competitors. However, Mack said, “I do not actually get to see my students compete. I spend the day with other schools’ coaches in a tabbing room.” The tabbing room is where the coaches and volunteers add up the competitors’ scores from their rounds and determine who they will compete against next. “I would much rather watch the events, but I still get to see my students hard work during practices,” Mack stated.
While managing judges and tabbing scores can be stressful, the Tournament can be equally as stressful for the competitors. Lila Schuppe, a freshman who competes in Dramatic Interpretation, mentioned how she felt a little nervous about the State Tournament after not placing as well as she wanted to. Other than that, Schuppe said, “I feel like it [hosting Divisionals] was nice because we knew where to go and we could help other people.”
Sophomore Christian Reck practices debating. (Joshua Strydom)
This year, Billings Central hosted Divisionals at the MSUB Campus, as Central’s facilities cannot accommodate a larger number of competitors and coaches. They have hosted the Tournament at MSUB in past years as well.
Overall, the team is feeling excited and confident for the State Tournament which will start on January 30th and end on the 31st. The location of this year’s Class A State Speech and Drama Tournament is Corvallis, Montana. All Central competitors who competed at the Divisionals Tournament are eligible for the State Tournament.
