Eight is great: Cats win another speech title

The Columbia Falls High School’s speech and debate team won its eighth-straight state Class A title in Havre, overcoming a stomach bug that had several members of the team vomiting in between rounds.

The Wildcats edged Billings Central 153-130 for the title Jan. 26.

“It wasn’t decided until the final round,” coach Tara Norick said. “The difference was teamwork and perserverence. They competed no matter how they felt.”

Seven competitors had a stomach flu. Norick said there weren’t enough additional hotel rooms to even separate the sick from the healthy. So they gutted it out.

“If the speakers that got sick had quit, we wouldn’t have won,” Norick said.

The team was led by junior Mason Gedlaman, who took championships in humorous oral interpretation and impromptu speaking.

He was the first Wildcat to win three state titles. He won one was last year.

Junior Alison Foust edged teammate Kaitlin Barnes for a state championship in Lincoln-Douglas debate.

It was Foust’s first state title.

“It was the best feeling in the world to debate Kaitlin in the final round,” Foust said.

Columbia Falls has won 15 state championships, far more than any other competition in the high school’s history.

Their first title came in 1978. The team received a rousing welcome in a Monday morning assembly at the school, where Gedlaman performed his speech for the student body to many laughs.

Policy debate

3rd — Mara Barnes and Monique Schoeck

7th — Emily Getts and Maddie Mantell

Lincoln-Douglas debate

1st — Allison Foust

2nd — Kaitlin Barnes

8th — Ada Brooks

Humorous interpretation of literature

1st — Mason Gedlaman

5th — Lexi Corbett

7th — Jenna Smith

Extemporaneous speaking

3rd — Blake Ladenburg

7th — Cody Phillips

8th — Mary Gross

Impromptu speaking

1st — Mason Gedlaman

3rd — Blake Ladenburg

Serious interpretation

of literature

3rd — Bailey Duke

7th — Meredith Stolte

Expository speaking

4th — Baylee Brinton

7th — Yeo Chung

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Gedlaman the entertainer

OK, so someone hands you a New Yorker cartoon. You have a moment to look at it and then three minutes to come up with three to five minute speech on the cartoon. On the mark, get set, go.

Columbia Falls High School junior Mason Gedlaman has been going through this routine for a couple of years now and he’s getting good at it. Gedlaman has consistently placed in the top three in the impromptu speech event all season long for the speech and debate team. He’s also one of the top speakers on the team in another category — humorous oral interpretation.

Impromptu speeches don’t have to be funny, but it helps if you can work some humor into it, he said last week.

“The person judges remember is the one that entertained them,” he said.

On the other hand, the speech isn’t a comedy routine — or shouldn’t be.

“It’s formal. It’s not goofy,” he said.

Gedlaman has a few tricks up his sleeve. He’s memorized dozens of quotes and lines from poems that he’ll try to work into his speech, particularly lines from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Write in on your heart.”

“It’s sappy,” Gedlaman shrugs. But it works.

In humorous oral interpretation, the rules are even more stringent. Not only do you have to be funny, you can’t move your feet. In addition, speakers must hold a binder notebook with the lines in front of them.

Gedlaman still gets his laughs. He reads from Wayne S. Rawley’s comedic play, “Controlling Interest” and plays six characters. Even though he’s performed the play dozens of times, it still makes him laugh.

With success comes work, of course. Gedlaman also plays varsity basketball, and a typical day easily will run 12 hours with school and school activities. But it’s a labor of love.

“I honestly wouldn’t give up speech for the world,” he said. “I love speech and debate.”

Being on the speech team is fun. And it has other perks as well. The guy to girl ratio is about one to four and the girls are good looking.

“That doesn’t hurt,” he says with a smile.