Speech competes at Cheyenne

The Hot Springs County High School speech and debate team traveled to Cheyenne last weekend for the Cheyenne East Holiday Classic Tournament to start out their season.

The Holiday Classic is one of the largest tournaments in the state with 1,000 participants representing 28 schools from both Wyoming and Colorado.

Senior Breeze Petty worked her way through the competition to break into Super Congress, the top 16 at the tournament. Petty competed last summer in student congress at the National Tournament and is continuing her run as a legislator to be aware of.

Petty is also competing in Lincoln-Douglas (LD) debate and finished the weekend with a 3-1 record going head to head with 3A and 4A competitors.

Sophomore Jean-Luc Willson managed a 2-2 record in LD, showing he is going to have a great second year as a debater.

On the novice side of LD, freshmen Tori Barnes and Madeline Wagler both posted a 1-3 record for their first meet.

At the last minute the Bobcats created a Public Forum (PF) debate team consisting of seniors Taydee Landrum and Kyle Hart. They proved to be an excellent combination with just a few days of practice, coming home with a 2-2 record.

Landrum also had an excellent weekend in student congress, missing the break into Super Congress by just one place.

Senior Hannah Hu continued her speech career in Cheyenne with a break into semi-finals in Original Oratory, just missing the break into finals by a single point.

However, Hu did win a bid for a spot to compete at the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions (NIETOC) in Texas in May, a first for a Bobcat speaker.

Ashley Brawley and Katie Burrows also had a “just missed it” moment with their duet, missing semi-finals by just one point.

“Its hard for the kids to understand how very proud we are of them as coaches after a tournament like this,” said coach Cindy Glasson. “This is an enormous meet, probably the largest one they’ll go to all season and to have them just missing moving up by a single point is amazing.

“So many of the schools at this tourney came from Colorado where they have six or seven coaches. Our kids kept right up with them, which I think is a testament to the hard work our students put in every day. We are going to be a force to be reckoned with all season long.”

Next on the agenda for the Cats is the Kelly Walsh Invitational which will be held on January 10-11 in Casper.