BHS spech and drama team headed to state

All 20 members of the Bigfork High School speech and drama team placed well enough at last weekend’s divisional tournament in Ronan to advance to the state tournament this weekend in Butte.

“I am so pleased to be able to bring so many kids to state, and I think it says a lot about our program that brought four to the state tournament my first year,” said BHS speech and drama coach Charlie Appleby.  “We are growing, and I think that bringing so many young kids, three freshmen and five sophomores, can only help the program in the future.”

For the second year in a row Bigfork is the only school to finish in the top three in both speech and drama as a team at divisionals.

“I was happy with the kids’ effort,” Appleby said. “Some kids really stepped it up, and as a team we did well. I hoped that we could slide into second place in drama, but Libby put up their usual good fight and edged us out by seven points.”

Jerry Gaiser and Jacob Sefcak repeated as divisional champions in Humorous Duo.

“I couldn’t be more proud of both of them,” Appleby said. “They are super talented kids that will go far in life no mater what they choose to do. Their personalities are magnetic, their attitudes positive and their acting skills a coach’s dream.”

Kayla Carlson won for Memorized Public Address, and captured her second divisional title this year after taking first place in cross country for the second year in a row.

“I was especially happy about Kayla’s win,” Appleby said. “She puts a lot of pressure on herself, and last year she tied for first, but lost on the tie breaker, so she was focused on winning this year. No one on the team works harder than Kayla Carlson and she deserves everything that she gets.”

Tanner Eshom and Brandon Western took second in Humorous Duo and Becca Denning placed second in Humorous Solo. Angie Gross tied for first place in Serious Solo, but lost the tie breaker and ended up taking second.

Caitlann O’Dell finished third in Expository after finishing rounds one through four with all ones.

Several Bigfork competitors took fifth place in their event, which included Gwen Fratt in Humorous Solo, Kenny Patrick and Ernie Cottle in Humorous Duo, Kristi Persinger in Humorous Solo, Amy Gembala and Jenna Egdorf in Classical Duo, Zoe Gaiser in Humorous Oral Interpretation and Felix Peppert, who beat three different competitors through the rounds in Original Oratory.

Bigfork’s sixth place finishers were Angel Gordon-Curtis in Serious Oral Interpretation and Krisie Henderson in Humorous Oral Interpretation.

In order to compete in the state tournament members had to place in the top six in their event. However, Kianna Wicklund and Laura Colvin, who finished seventh in Humorous Solo and eighth in Memorized Public Address, respectively, will still go to the state tournament as alternates for other divisions.

The trip to Butte is the last of many long journeys that the Bigfork team has had to make over the last few weeks. Their coach figures that many of them have spent 47 hours over the last three Saturdays commuting and competing, which doesn’t include practice during the week.

“I am surprised that these kids have been willing to invest so many of their Saturdays and that they have been willing to get up at three or four in the morning to drive to these far off schools,” Appleby said. “There are no fans or groupies or fat contracts waiting for them, but they compete anyway. Some for the love of it, and some for the camaraderie. I don’t think that I could be more blessed as a coach to work with kids who are so dedicated. This week they have to take their finals early in order to go to state, so instead of a pay off they have even more pressure on them. But if any of these kids need to do something that requires hard work, dedication and determination in the future, they have had a pretty solid lesson in that over the last three weeks alone.”