Los Banos Rotary conducts speech contest featuring ‘Create Hope in the World’ theme
The Westside Express
The Los Banos Rotary Club held their annual local speech contest Wednesday night, Jan. 24 at Merced College Los Banos Campus.
Students in Prof. Griffin Cheek’s speech class were the judges and timers as three students from Los Banos High and four students from Pacheco High competed for first, second, third and honorable mention.
Family, friends and Rotarians attended the competition as the competitors drew numbers to determine the order in which they would speak.
Create Hope in the World was the theme created by International Rotary President, Gordon R. McInally. Each student was given minutes to speak on the topic: How does Rotary create hope in the world.
After all seven speeches were completed, the judges’ scores were tabulated and the first place winner was Elizabeth Gonzalez from Pacheco High who received a certificate and $125 from the Los Banos Rotary Club. Second place certificate and $100 went to Karley Rocha of Los Banos High. Third place certificate and $75 was awarded to Ava Menefee from Los Banos High and Honorable Mention certificate and $50 was awarded to Jared van Loben Sels from Los Banos High.
College Los Banos Campus.
Rotary President Tanya Price thanked everyone for their participation and is looking forward to even more student participation in next year’s competition.
Gonzalez will now move on to the Rotary Area Speech Contest. It will be held Feb. 12 in the same Merced College Los Banos Campus room. She will compete against the first place winners from the Gustine and Newman Rotary Clubs.
The winner of that event will move on to the District Rotary Speech Competition being held Sat., March 16 at the Merced County Office of Education in Merced.
