You Could Be a Judge at Corvallis Speech Meet

Almost every year, Corvallis High School swarms with kids who like to talk and act. The school is known for its excellent invitational speech meets for Class A schools and this year, it's the State Class A Tournament.

Doug McConnaha is expecting about 400 students from all over Montana for the two-day competition at the end of the month. The January 28 competition starts at 11 a.m. and the Saturday sessions January 29 will begin at 8 in the morning.

The kids are coming, but the number of judges is a little low, in part due to the COVID-19 continuing pandemic. The community has responded in the past to calls for judges and we need to do it again this year. The judging procedure is not that difficult. And, if you have never done it before, there's even a practice session for you. The judge training session is Tuesday, January 25. The short meeting will be for those who are new judges and for those who want to refresh their skills. Doug will holding the training at Corvallis High School classroom 20.

There are three debate events, six drama events and seven speech events. And, you don't have to be at the meet for the whole weekend. Even if you only time for a couple of hours, please sign up.

Debate starts Friday at 11 am, with Round 2 at 1 p.m., Round 3 at 3 p.m. and Round 4 at 5 p.m. Saturday, Round 5 of the Debates will start at 8 a.m., with Quarter-finals at 10 a.m., Semi-finals at 1 p.m. and Finals at 4 p.m.

Speech and Drama competition starts at 1 p.m. Friday, with Round 2 at 3 p.m. and Round 3 at 5 p.m. Saturday, Round 4 is at 8 a.m., Round 5 at 10 a.m., followed by Semi-finals at 1 p.m. and Finals at 4 p.m.

A lot of rooms in the school will be used for the competition and there are an estimated 500 "judging hours" to cover. So, you can see, they need some people to help out. You can sign-up right here and you can even select what you'd like to judge - speech, debate or drama. You will be impressed by the huge amount of talent these young people bring. Need more information, call the school at 406 961-3201.