Copyright Kalispell Inter Lake
Kalispell’s high school speech and debate teams have a lot to say about the upcoming season with a mix of returning and new competitors — and a new head coach at Flathead High School. With Glacier High School set to host the 2026 Class AA state tournament Jan. 30-31, both teams hope to reclaim and return the state title to Kalispell. Glacier last hosted state in 2014 and Flathead in 2019. “The Wolfpack looks forward to welcoming teams from across Montana to compete at this prestigious event,” head coach Greg Adkins said. At the 2025 state tournament, Bozeman High School won the championship title on its home turf, edging out state runner-up, Flathead, by a point. Glacier placed third. “After placing one point behind Bozeman at the state tournament ... and winning state the year before, we have a great chance of making a state run this year,” Flathead head coach Kelli Rosenquist said. Although new to the head coach role, Rosenquist brings years of experience working with the team as an assistant coach, most recently leading the varsity Public Forum Debate and Legislative Debate squads. She succeeds longtime coach Shannon O’Donnell, who retired but remains involved in the program. Rosenquist called the transition to head coaching as “a totally different beast,” now overseeing the entire team. “As head coach, that means that all of them are my kids now, and I get to support them and work with them and try and make their experience and speech beneficial to their lives,” Rosenquist said. Rosenquist competed in speech and debate at Sentinel High School in Missoula at the suggestion of an English teacher to overcome her anxiety of public speaking. With the guidance of her debate coaches, she became a three-time national qualifier and a two-time All-State debater. She said speech and debate changed how she viewed herself and the world. “I always wanted to be able to do that for my students," she said. FLATHEAD STARTS the season with 108 students and Glacier, more than 100, with numbers expected to grow after the fall sports season concludes. “I’m excited to see what the season will bring for this team,” said Adkins, who has been coaching Kalispell speech and debate teams since 1993. “Every year, it feels like we take a massive hit when we look at our graduates, and this year is no different. We had a pretty special class in the class of '25, and so now our focus is to build towards the future. Last season, we were blessed with the strongest freshman class in team history, so now we will look for those students to take leadership positions in our program. Those underclassmen with a solid group of senior returners should help us,” he said. Those upperclassmen include: Daniel Cole, the 2025 state runner-up in Duo Interpretation and All-State competitor; Anya Denmark, a two-time national qualifier in Lincoln-Douglas Debate and World Schools Debate and the 2024 Humorous Interpretation state champion; Myla Lamson, a national qualifier in Expository and Poetry; Josh Lee, a two-time All-State Policy Debater and two-time national qualifier in World Schools Debate; Kaylin Stein, the 2024 Humorous Interpretation state champion, national qualifier and two-time All-State Humorous Interpretation and Duo Interpretation competitor and a national qualifier in Prose and Poetry and Asher Stanfield. Other returning All-State competitors are Sophie Johnson (Duo Interpretation), Megan Mikelson (Dramatic Interpretation) and Olivia Kufa (Public Forum Debate). “We are in the process of shuffling some kids to new events, so it will be a learning process as we try to figure out how we create depth and balance on the team," Adkins added. Rosenquist echoed a similar sentiment about team rebuilding after losing some state champions, national qualifiers and team captains. “We’ve lost some people that were really bedrocks of the team,” she said. “But ultimately, if we look to our national qualifiers, and our All-State students, and our rising stars, we still have the bulk of our team, which means that we have kids on our team that won state two years ago.” Flathead’s returning talent includes Jaydon Pesola, the 2025 state champion in Duo Interpretation and All-State competitor. Other returning All-State competitors include Thomas Bertram (Extemporaneous Speaking) and Lindy Porter (Program Oral Interpretation). The list of Flathead’s returning 2025 national qualifiers includes: Layna Astley (Duo Interpretation), Dalton Howser (World Schools Debate), Mitchell Johnson (Congress — House), Fenton Liebe-Cohen (U.S. Extemporaneous Speaking), Jake Milone (International Extemporaneous Speaking), B Poitra (Congress — House), Porter (Duo Interpretation), Claire Timm (Expository Speaking) and Bronson Willcut (Program Oral Interpretation). WITH THE first tournament of the season set Saturday in Missoula, Flathead and Glacier geared up for the competition with practice scrimmages at their respective schools on Oct. 25. At Flathead, the commanding voices of students resounded through empty hallways, guiding the way to where they were practicing. Howser and Milone said the scrimmages provide an informal, low-pressure environment to get experience of how a tournament operates. Scrimmages are also an opportunity for competitors to test material in front of a judge and audience to see if a particular event is a good fit or not, with one student voicing such concerns to an assistant coach after finishing a round. For others such as Howser and Milone, who are competing in Extemporaneous Speaking and Impromptu Speaking, the scrimmage marks the beginning of a season-long effort to research and refine the events they will compete it. “We have a really strong team this year,” Milone said. As seniors Howser and Milone, who is a short prep squad captain, see their role as aiding the coaches by helping mentor underclassmen as they build and strengthen skills in public speaking and communication, research and organization, logical reasoning and persuasion and memorization and presentation. “We’re so hopeful for competitive success, but also to see younger kids [who are] up and coming. I’m excited for them to grow, for them to experience it like I have,” Howser said. For both teams, continual practice and growth is at the heart of success. "I think any kind of kid can succeed in speech and debate by figuring out which event they’re best suited to because there’s something for everyone. Just by working hard, speech and debate is one of those things where regardless of initial ability, that if they work hard, they take feedback well, they show up to practice — they will get something out of it,” Rosenquist said.
