Riverside High School hosts first speech & debate meet

The Riverside Jurassic Classic was held Jan. 18 in Basin. 

This was the first time the school hosted a meet. 

Speech and Debate Advisor said it was a huge success.

“The name of our meet is the Jurassic Classic and it was/is all Jurassic Park and dinosaur themed which gave us some flexibility to have fun with trophies for competitors and teams,” said Miller. “So, it means that finalists received individual dinos while first place for teams received a golden T-rex skull and second place for teams received a small velociraptor sculpture.”

They added fun to the meet for competitors and viewers alike by offering  dino prizes for those who wanted to complete dino themed quizzes and a giant dino raffle. 

Miller went on, “We had eight schools attend our meet: Hot Springs (Thermopolis), Worland, Glenrock, Wyoming Indian, Powell, Burlington, Lovell/Rocky, and Greybull. We had over 100 entries spanning across 10 events which included Congressional Debate, Dramatic Interpretation, Duet Interpretation, Extemporaneous Speaking, Humorous Interpretation, Impromptu, Informative Speaking, Oratory, Poetry Interpretation, and Program Oral Interpretation.” 

While most meets are two days, this meet was only one day. 

“Our speech and debate team members, Mo Wyatt, Addison Butcher, Felix Ramirez, and Tavern Olsen, were not allowed to compete but they were awesome at helping ensure that the meet ran smoothly. We also had extra help from some middle schoolers that are upcoming team members, Dakota Butcher and Charley Russell. We also truly appreciated our judges which consisted of staff, parents, and community members that came to judge events throughout the day. Without them we would not have gotten our meet off the ground. I also had the best tabroom help who helped keep our meet running smoothly behind the scenes in Lyle Wylie (head coach of Hot Springs) and Rick Dorn (head coach of Worland).

“We had an absolute blast hosting and running our very first speech meet! We cannot wait to host again next year!”