State of Montana Newsroom
Missoula Student Takes Top Honors In Montana State Poetry Out Loud Competition
On Saturday, March 7th, fourteen high school students from across Montana squared off on the stage of the Grandstreet Theatre in Helena to compete in the 2026 Montana Poetry Out Loud State Finals. After three rounds of competitive recitation judged on accuracy, interpretation, and other factors, Missoula senior Ellette Whitcomb of Hellgate High School was crowned this year’s Montana state champion.
Ellette’s victory followed recitations of “Militants to Certain Other Women” by Katharine Rolston Fisher, “She of the Dancing Feet Sings” by Countee Cullen, and “A New Spinning Song” by Margaret Widdemer. In second place was Eva Murray from Anaconda High School, and Samantha Symington of Missoula’s Big Sky High School was third.
Following her win Ellette and her family will travel to Washington D.C. on April 28th, where she’ll represent Montana in the National Poetry Out Loud Finals. Up for grabs is the national title and a $20,000 prize, with a student from every American state and jurisdiction competing. Now in its 21st year, Poetry Out Loud is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts and is administered locally by state arts agencies including the Montana Arts Council. Participation begins in fall, with teachers providing coaching and guidance in preparation for regional competitions which decide each year’s state finalists.
Ellette Whitcomb is seventeen years old and a senior at Missoula’s Hellgate High. She participates in two mixed-voice choirs, serves as an officer in Hellgate’s writing club and literary journal, Troubadour, and Hellgate’s environmental club, Students Advocating for a Viable Environment. A dancer at Ballet Arts Academy, she studies jazz, hip hop, acro-tumbling, modern, and ballet. She enjoys reading extensively, writing literature, literary analysis, listening to and creating music, and hiking in the summer. After high school she plans to continue her education at an East coast university, hoping to pursue a combined study of the performing arts and writing.
Montanans of all ages are invited to congratulate Ellette and cheer her on as she competes in next month’s National Finals, which will be broadcast on the National Endowment for the Arts website: https://www.arts.gov/initiatives/poetry-out-loud