Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

The Haines High School Drama, Debate and Forensic team is back in action - bigger and more confident than before.

The team of seven Haines High School students traveled to Juneau last weekend to compete among more than 100 students from schools around the region during a two-day Drama, Debate and Forensics tournament.

The competition was the third that the Glacier Bards have competed in this season. Each year the team competes in a total of five tournaments during the regular season before the state tournament in February.

In this tournament, Selby Long, a junior and the captain of the team, was the only Haines student to make it into the final round of an event. She finished third in Extemporaneous Commentary.

Other team members, including juniors Willa Stuart, Colin Aldassy and Kaylah Moseley, and sophomores Sophia Long and Amy Lahr, were all close to breaking into the final rounds of their respective events, said Haines coach Hannah Bochart. She said all team members got encouraging feedback on how to improve their events for future tournaments.

In an interview on Saturday, Long said the Extemporaneous Commentary event has always been her strong suit since she joined the team as a freshman. The event involves drawing a random topic from a range of social, political, or historical prompts, and in just 20 minutes preparing a five-minute speech to respond to the prompt.

Long's performance was on the topic "Italian-American Heritage and Culture Month." She spoke about her Italian grandfather and the impact his culture had on her life.

Long, along with Aldassy, said being a part of the DDF team has helped grow their public speaking skills, pushed them to think on their toes, and built their confidence to take risks. The pair said traveling to different parts of Alaska for tournaments and being surrounded by students from different schools is nerve-wracking but also exciting.

"It can get so heated during debates sometimes, but as soon as it's over everyone is just so nice and crack jokes with each other," Aldassy said.

Lahr, new member of the team this year who moved to Haines from Minnesota, said she thought being surrounded by veteran DDF competitors would be intimidating, but after traveling to Juneau and meeting them in person, she was excited to see all the different talent from each school.

Bochart said this year's team is young and the majority of them are new to DDF, which means many students are still getting used to the nerves of performing in front of judges. She said for some of the students, the past weekend was their first tournament ever.

She said looking toward the rest of the season, she hopes to focus on polishing performances and honing in on each student's strengths.

"I'm really excited - we have a bunch of new students and this was their first chance to try a lot of things out," she said. "We have a long season, so they have a lot of opportunities to grow and hone their pieces throughout the year. I'm excited to see them take what they learned from this tournament and put it into their performances.

The team has two upcoming tournaments in Sitka and Ketchikan.