Sara Menssen’s path to AA Speech Coach of the Year has been articulated by encouraging words and opportunity from former coaches and mentors.

While her path led her to adventure outside of Montana, it ultimately brought her back home where she has served as a Glacier High School assistant speech coach since the school opened in 2007. She also teaches English and theater.

She coaches Duo Interpretation and Memorized Public Address. Her career highlights include about 18 state champions. Of them, six were consecutive state champions in Memorized Public Address state champions from 2014 to 2019.

As a 2004 Flathead High School graduate and high school speech and debate competitor, Menssen is a familiar face among the cadre of Kalispell coaches.

In high school, she started out in Lincoln-Douglas Debate, which current Glacier Assistant Debate Coach Ivanna Fritz oversaw at the time, yet found her talents were better suited to speech.

“I did Memorized Public Address and figured out that was my event,” Menssen said.

Menssen got into speech and debate when her “athletic career ended as a freshman.

“I was sitting in 10th-grade honors English. Speech and debate [season] was starting and Ivanna does this thing where she knocks on the table and says, ‘What’s that? That’s opportunity knocking — an opportunity to join speech and debate.’ So I showed up to her practice.”

From a competitor perspective, Menssen enjoyed finding a group of peers having interesting conversations.

“It was really exciting to be in an environment where students were having real conversations,” Menssen said, which included the speeches students prepared for competitions.

After graduating college with a theater degree from the University of Idaho in 2007, she wasn’t certain what to pursue next. Before graduating, she said Glacier speech and debate head coach Greg Adkins and Fritz reached out to her to consider returning to Kalispell to coach at the high school, which was preparing to open.

She took that opportunity and became involved in the high school theater department.

The interesting conversations that intrigued her as a competitor still do as a coach.

“As a coach I think it’s really incredible to watch students think for themselves and figure out what matters most to them — values, morals, social issues,” Menssen said, and then present that to an audience.

She views one of her endeavors as a coach is helping students hone their communication skills.

Speech students spend the beginning of the season distilling complex ideas, speeches and stories that inform, entertain, or persuade, in an understandable way within the span of minutes.

“In both Memorized Public Address and Duo Interpretation my goal is everyone has speeches fully memorized at that first tournament of the season,” she said, which is a quick turnaround with the first practice at the start of October and the first tournament at the end of October or beginning of November.

In Memorized Public Address, for example, Menssen said students find a prepared speech to memorize and write an analysis. An example from this season was a competitor who memorized poet Maya Angelou’s eulogy for civil rights activist Coretta Scott King.

The overall challenge of this particular event is that whether a selected speech is five minutes or two hours long, competitors have to edit it for length while maintaining the author’s message and present their analysis to fit into the 10 minutes allotted for competition.

What has aided her coaching skills was a theater background. She took two opportunities to intern at South Coast Repertory and take an assistantship at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The experiences led her to realize she missed the valley and working with students and that, in theater she would need to specialize in one area rather than combine her two interests — stage management and lighting design. She returned to the valley and began substitute teaching. In 2015, she was hired to teach on a provisional license at Glacier while completing degrees in secondary education and English education in addition to continuing to coach.

When Menssen received her award, which was voted on by her peers in the Montana Forensic Educators Association, she was in the good company with all the people who had a hand in coaching her in high school. This included Flathead High School Head Coach Shannon O’Donnell, who was also a Coach of the Year finalist in addition to Fritz and Flathead High School Assistant Coach Sean O’Donnell, who were inducted into the Montana Forensic Educators Association Coaches Hall of Fame.

“Every coach I competed for happened to be at the event, which was really special,” Menssen said.

Adkins said Menssen winning the award was a long time coming after she had been previously nominated for the award.

“Sara Menssen absolutely deserves this award,” Adkins said. “Sara has long been known as one of the best coaches in Montana. I’m so glad she is being recognized with this award.”

In addition to O’Donnell, the other finalist considered for the award was Myra Nurre from Billings West High School.

“I think we’re super fortunate to have a community that supports this activity,” Menssen said, noting that the number of competitors and the AA home tournament invitations extended to ABC schools, is because of community members who volunteer to judge.

“The only way we get better is by giving students a chance to speak in front of people,” she said.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.