For the first time in five years, Haines hosted a regional Debate, Drama and Forensics meet. Over a hundred students from all over SouthEast descended on the Haines High School to debate, act, mime and orate. Notably absent was the team from Skagway, as the entire team called in sick. All the participants from out of town slept at the school, as Haines DDF coach Hannah Bochart describes.  

“All the rooms that they are sleeping in during the night have competition happening during the day, so we’ve seen kids in pajamas moving up and down the hall, moving their luggage to and fro, and then they all bed down in the school for the night, so it kind of has the feeling of a giant slumber party.”

Hosting the meet required a lot of preparation from both students and coaches.

Bochart praised her team for their independence:

“So the kids have pretty much been on their own for the last week or so. I’ve been unable to be in helping them get their pieces ready because I’ve been too busy, so they have really been pulling the weight and coaching each other, they’ve been helping each other get prepped, they’ve really been working so, so, so hard to make up for basically being without a coach at their own home meet.”

The weather kept some volunteer judges from making it to the event, and last minute changes were common. But things ran mostly smoothly and Bochart is grateful:

“We’ve been getting lots of support from other coaches, and massive community support.”

The energy in the school was high and joyful.  

Here, Juneau’s Thunder Mountain High School Coach Jaime Marks comments on the spirit of the event:

“The fun thing about the drama debates tournament is the camaraderie with all the other teams and so our juniors and seniors in particular enjoy seeing members of other teams that they’ve competed against and they have these longer friendships, and the newer students see that, and they are like ’oh, i guess it’s OK to make friends on other teams.”

It was also an occasion for students to work hard and reach for excellence. Here is Ketchikan student Divisha Jagtiani.

“A lot of people find it difficult and the one thing is, this class, everybody would do it if it wasn’;t difficult. So, with it being difficult you learn a lot of skills, which is probably the biggest thing that I would take away from this. But yeah, it is a lot of preparation. It’s gone a little bit well, but also not at the same time, I couldn’t participate in my first two debates because i wasn’t feeling too great,  but then I finalled in my Ex Com speaking, so i end up in the final round and i have one more chance to try and place in top six.” 

There was a new category to compete in, Coach Marks again:

“We tried a new event, called Improvisational duet acting, and so two people would get a little story line of some kind and then take twenty minutes to do and improvisational acting piece, and that has been incredibly popular with the students and we’ve seen some fun performances”

With some participants sick, and a high enthusiasm, it was improvisational all around.

Bochart recalls:

“One of my students come jogging into the room, as events were beginning, and he says ‘I think I’m going to start doing  improvisational duet acting, I’m going to fill in’ I said ‘Ok, I can plug you in, it’s about to start, how many events are you doing right now’. He said, `I don’t really know, five’, I said do you think you can do it? And he said ‘Yeah’ and he jogged out the door again.”

The event culminated in the top rated participants performing on the Chilkat Center stage on Saturday evening.

Noted local participants included, Selby Long and Colin Aldassy, the last minute jogger, who placed first in Improvisational duet acting.

Aldassy also placed 3rd in Humorous interpretation.

Willa Stuart placed 4th in Original Oratory

And Jade Oaks, Sal Chapell, Maddox Rogers together with Aldassy, Stuart and Long placed second in Reader’s Theatre.

The next regional DDF meet will take place in Ketchikan on December 2nd and 3rd.

“It really feels like we are coming back from our post pandemic slump and it’s really coming back to life.”