Our future's in great hands, folks!

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of being a judge at the Great Falls Invitational Speech Meet held at East Middle School. They started Friday at 4:00, going 3 rounds and then picked it up bright and early Saturday morning at 8:00 and working through until about 7:00 p.m., when they had awards at Great Falls High School.

These kids work VERY hard, and they are all incredibly talented! The worst part about being a judge, is, you can't have any ties. There were many times I wanted to give 1st place to more than one speaker.

Some of the events I was able to judge were: Expository, Extemperanious, Humourous Duo (which I loved! They all did great!), Original Oratory and I did the finals in an event where they used props. The topics ranged from Magic (my favorite presenter) to Dogs (another favorite) to Genetics (which was extremely interesting even though I'm not very science savvy.)

So, if an opportunity comes up to be a judge at one of these events, you should volunteer! You will see some of our future leaders preparing for tomorrow. I'm very impressed with all the young people I met over the weekend.

Oh, and my daughter ended up in 4th in her event, so that was the icing on the cake!