In her first stab at speechwriting, she qualifies for nationals

In an event she has never competed in, with a speech she wrote the week of the competition, Ava Chisholm qualified for nationals recently.

The Columbia Falls High School debater will compete in program oral interpretation in June in Birmingham, Alabama. This will be her second year in a row at nationals.

“It was very surprising,” Chisholm said last week. Another Columbia Falls student, Jacob Hohman, qualified for nationals this year as the second alternate for informative speech.

POI is a speech that incorporates several genres of literature to support a single theme. The event is only available in class AA, so Chisholm has never written a speech for it before.

“Even my coaches didn’t quite know what this event was about,” Chisholm said.

She beat out the rest of the state competition in POI with a speech on “Innocence” using three excerpts of literature. The first is “Camp Sunshine,” a short play on the innocence of childhood and summer camp. The second is “Once More to the Lake,” by E. B. White, a story about a man reflecting on his experience at summer camp. The third is a poem called “Innocence of you in the flowers”

For the national competition, she is planning to write a new speech on something more meaningful and relevant in today’s society. Maybe on feminism or general oppression of women, she said. She wants to go above the status quo of humor or satire.

“I think that’s the kind of piece that will win and that’s worth doing,” Chisholm said. “It’s a better strategy.”

Chisholm usually writes speeches, but this year she was on the debate team. She took second at state in public forum debate with her partner, Anna Nicosia.

Chisholm still has a year left of high school, yet she has an idea of what she will do when she graduates.

“I would like to go to college on the east coast,” Chisholm said. After graduating from a top college, she plans to attend law school and eventually get into politics or practicing law.

She never thought she would go in to law. Her parents, Dean and Penni, are practicing attorneys in Columbia Falls.

But joining the speech and debate team led her to reconsider.

“I really enjoy debating and giving speeches,” she said.

She took a break from debating and giving speeches last week, but will practice nearly every day for the national competition in June.