Student Speaker Contest at the Orcutt Lions’ Club. Four students participated and they were all PVHS students. The judges were amazed by all of them and couldn’t stop praising them. Andrea Pasillas won first place and will be going on to the next round of the competition.
“The National Student Speaking Competition is a public speaking contest open to all California high school students. I’ve always been interested in debate and public speaking, but unfortunately our school doesn’t offer any clubs or programs that involve debate or public speaking about societal issues. In the course of my four years of high school, however have a debate club but it was canceled due to not many people being interested. In order to prepare , I had to write a minimum of 5 minute speech on the topic ‘Integrity and civility play what role in today’s society?’ and try to memorize the two page speech. I felt relieved when I found out I won, because this is my last time I’ll ever be in a high school speaking competition. I put so much pressure on myself, for the fear that I would lose. y friend Judith told me I could do it, and I did. Now that I won the first round I will be going onto the second round.” -Andrea Pasillas (12)“I partook in the Lions Student Speaker Contest, which awards competitors’ participation with monetary incentive. The incentive increases with each round, to which only one student progresses from each regional competition. I first heard about the contest when my English teacher Mr. Rothstein asked the class if anyone was interested in a public speaking completion that would give us money, I and approximately four or five other students raised our hands. A few days later we received notes in class instructing us to head to Mrs. McDonald’s office for information regarding the competition. This is where I met Karen Piñon, who explained the rules , most important being that the speech must be between 5 and 10 minutes long, and the prompt: what role do civility and integrity play in today’s society? My first preparatory steps were unconventional, I wrote the prompt on a card as well as the definitions of the words civility and integrity. This was so that if, by an unforeseen change of heart, I decided my speech was garbage and wanted to ad lib it, much in that tropic way seen in movies. The card was to serve as something to check that whatever bright idea I got actually was on topic and the definitions to concretely define what was to be answered rather than make assumptions with a lack of clarity. I ended up typing my speech and reading it word for word, and attempted to demonstrate the civility and integrity are what separate our society from animal societies, but that they serve, or will fail to serve, the same fundamental purpose as any species’ adaptions, to increase our ability to survive and procreate. I was crunched for time and had to print my unfinished speech, which I would read word for word, as memorization wasn’t required for the first round, called the club competition, and I scribbled the conclusion onto the paper with an American flag pen.” Maximus Roark Laurie (12)“The student speaker contest is a contest organized by the lions club designed to give different students an opportunity to compete against each other on a given topic. Each student has to prepare and present a speech on the given topic. This years topic was integrity and we each had to speak about it for 5-10 minutes. I got into the contest because Mrs. Zarate sent the details to my English teacher, and since I like public speaking I thought it was a cool opportunity. Most people wrote out their speech to prepare. I decided to just make note cards, and I practiced my speech a couple of times beforehand.” Laisa Ruiz (12)
“The speaking contest was this lion club held event that they have annually and they pretty much bring people in through teacher recommendations and have them prepare a 5 minute speech on a topic they choose. This year it was what role does civility and integrity play in our society.” Jovany Medina-Contreras (12)
