Glasgow's Proctor And Whitmer Place At Nationals

Though Speech and Drama held their State competition a few weeks ago, the season hasn’t ended for Glasgow’s Gabe Proctor and Connor Whitmer. As a result of their placing during the B/C State Meet in Choteau at the end of January, both students had the opportunity to travel to Billings this past weekend to compete in the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA), where students from all over the state convened to compete for a spot in the top third and to become eligible to advance to the National Competition this summer.

Proctor placed fourth in his humorous oral interpretation (HOI) event, which did not qualify him for the National Competition, However due to the third place qualifier participating and placing in another event, Proctor was offered the opportunity to attend Nationals.

Whitmer, who typically participates in the spontaneous oral interpretation (SPOI) event, had to switch things up a bit for NSDA as SPOI is not a NSDA event. As a result, he participated in the NSDA’s Congressional Senate and placed 11th. He will be applying to be a part of the World Debate Team and was offered the opportunity to attend in a supplementary event.

Though Connor and Proctor will be representing Glasgow in the National events, other Glasgow Speech and Drama students have placed in the top of the state, according to NSDA.

Proctor is placed 33rd with 841 points, Whitmer is placed 68th with 663 points and Kai Combs is 98th with 563 points. The top 50 students in Montana via NSDA for each category also include Proctor in first place in humorous interpretation with 725 points, Combs in dramatic interpretation with 421 points and Harley “Leon” Edwards in 22nd in dramatic interpretation with 219 points.

Proctor is also placed 21st nationally via NSDA with 757 points in humorous interpretation. Since Whitmer’s event of SPOI is not a NSDA event, he gets points but does not have a category to compare to.

As a team, Glasgow High School is ranked 32 out of 45 teams, so for such a small team, the competitors are contenders in the state and on a national level.

To help raise funds to allow Proctor and Whitmer to travel, the Glasgow Speech and Drama team are doing a number of different fundraisers. Follow them on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/glasgowscottiesspeechanddrama for current campaigns.