Girls pleasantly surprised by nationals berth

 Columbia Falls speech students Chloe Foster and Ava Chisholm had no expectation of making it to nationals. They knew it would be a difficult competition going up against AA students in the state. But they both placed first place at the national qualifier tournament earlier this month.

Chisholm, a sophomore, won first place for her humorous interpretation speech several times throughout the regular season and also won at state.

“I was pretty determined to get that done and I was pretty expectant of myself to do that,” she said. But the rules changed for her event in the national qualifier tournament. She was happy to do well the first day, making it to third place. The second day she consistently did better and was ranked first going into the finals.

“But the whole time I was still thinking that these people were just as good if not better than me,” Chisholm said.

Her winning speech is a piece from “Fat Kids on Fire”, which is about Bess who goes to a summer camp for fat girls and meets all sorts of different personalities and learns how to deal with them.

Foster, a junior, won first place for her original oratory at only one other tournament, so it was completely unexpected to get first again.

“I didn’t even want to go to this tournament,” she said. Foster was 10th out of 12 going into semifinals, and sixth of six going into finals. She was just thankful to make it through each round. She said the win was “a pleasant surprise.”

“Doing really good in finals round, that’s like the only way,” she said. 

At nationals, Foster will argue against people having blind faith, a topic inspired by the research she has learned to do on the speech and debate team.

The girls will practice once a week to keep their memorization strong until the national tournament in June in Salt Lake City, Utah. Chisholm also wants to find community members who are knowledgeable in acting and speech to get outside input. 

However, Foster said she doesn’t want to over-practice. She thought the AA speeches were rehearsed too much. She said that being authentic and less perfected can sometimes be a good thing. 

Chisholm agreed. 

“I think that helped both of us, for sure,” she said.

Once again, they’re not expecting anything as they prepare for the June tourney in Salt Lake City. The experience is enough, they said.

They’ve heard from past students who went to nationals that it’s a “crazy” experience.

“Double the population of our town in one room type deal,” Chisholm said.