Speech tourney set for Saturday

Ten schools are preparing to converge on Hot Springs County High School this Saturday for the annual Bobcat Invitational Speech Tournament.

“I am very excited to see this many schools coming here,” coach Cindy Glasson said. “It’s a lot of work getting things ready, but so worth it for these kids.”

While the Bobcats don’t actually participate in the tournament, they organize and run it, it is an excellent opportunity for them to see what goes into a tournament and gives them some insight into what they will be up against come January.

Teams from the Basin, such as Greybull, Powell, Lovell, Riverside, Cody and Wyoming Indian will be participating along with teams as far away as Kemmerer, Torrington, Dubois and Newcastle.

“We are one of the few tournaments available before the first of the year,” Glasson said. “We run novice events as well as varsity, so it gives the ‘newbies’ some time to get on their feet and get more comfortable before everything goes strictly varsity after January first.”

The public is, of course, welcome to come and see any of the performances throughout the day. Rounds begin at 9 a.m. and will run until approximately 5:30 p.m.

“We depend heavily on the community to fill our judging pool,” Glasson said. “We’ve always been really lucky that way.

“I enjoy when I’m out at the grocery store or somewhere in town and people ask me about the team. Folks really enjoy the kids’ success.”

Along with debate events, there will be Student Congress, which is set up like our state or national congress, with the presentation of bills written by the students and parliamentary procedure to keep things running smoothly.

Humor, drama, duet, poetry and original oratory will be presented and current events will be discussed with extemp.

Glasson said the Bobcat team is preparing for their tournament schedule, which starts in January with a trip to Casper for the Kelly Walsh tournament.

“We graduated five seniors last year,” Glasson said, “leaving us with just one returning member. I was thrilled to see so many freshmen and sophomores filling the seats at our first team meeting.

“There are some really talented kids out there and they’re excited to get going. I’ve got them picking out pieces and starting to memorize. We’ll be practicing during their Christmas break, but they’re a dedicated bunch, so I’m sure we’re going to be ready for Kelly Walsh.

“This is going to be fun.”