Girl power looks to lead speech team to state title

The Columbia Falls speech and debate team will use a little girl power as it looks to win its 13th straight state A title this week in Corvallis.

Seniors Danielle Schwalk, Jordyn King, Kayla McDowall, Gabby Merrell and Emma Erickson all hope to make their mark this weekend in Corvallis.

There’s just six boys on the 30-plus member team, and only one of them is a senior. While Whitefish has been a thorn in their side all season long, the ladies say the team to beat this year is Laurel.

“Laurel’s our competition,” said Merrell, a Lincoln-Douglas debater. “They have good debaters.”

The five girls have worked long and hard to this end and they admit, there’s some jitters. They don’t want to be the first team to not bring home a championship in 12 years.

Collectively, they have 17 years experience, but it wasn’t always smooth sailing.

King competes in memorized public address and has done well this season. She’s one of four team captains, but she still remembers that time when she was a freshman and she thought she’d memorized her speech, but really hadn’t.

She “went off divider” and blew it, ended up crying out in the hallway.

“When I started, I was not thinking I was good at speech and would be a team captain,” she said.

Last weekend, King took first at the divisional tourney in dramatic interpretation.

But even if one bombs, it is an empowering experience. At the very worst, you learn to speak comfortably in front of a crowd. At the best, you bring home some hardware and make friends for life, the girls note.

They spend a lot of time together in practice sessions and long bus rides. They cheer together, singing a song of a pterodactyl.

In the cheer the pterodactyl goes from the egg to flying. “Soar the skies, pterodactyl,” the cheer goes.

But the team added its own twist at the end.

“Mass extinction!”

“Mass extinction!”

“Mass extinction!”

A uniquely speech team ending if there ever was one.

Perhaps that’s why the team is so successful. They take this speaking stuff seriously, but not too seriously.

Merrell said she debates for simple reason.

“I love to argue,” she said.

They all plan on attending college after high school. They’re bright, young women. McDowall nabbed a 34 on the ACT test, though she’s not sure what college she’s going to, or what, exactly, she’ll study.

“Something in math of science,” she said.

Their interests run the gamut.

Erickson wants to study nutrition at Concordia College in Minnesota. Schwalk, a debater, wants to study genetics at the University of Oregon. King is off to the University of Vermont to study audiology. Merrell wants to study international relations at Hawaii Pacific University and then join the Peace Corps.

Soar the skies Pterodactyl!