We held our first-ever virtual speech contest this week and it was a great success! Five high school students competed in a Zoom speech contest.  While they didn't get in-person public speaking experience, they were able to practice the newly important skill of speaking well on a video call.  Highlights: former member Joel Hueske joined from North Carolina as a judge, Joel and Ed renewed the red bow tie tradition and one contestant joined the bow tie club, Ed Markey did a fabulous job as the Emcee, and Dave Nielsen introduced real-time web scoring that worked great.  Many thanks to Angie Akmakjian for doing a truly fantastic job of organizing.  

 

Winners will reprise their speech for the full club at our March 5 meeting.

 

Saturday December 19.  Our club will pass out coco from 10:30 to 2:00. Sign-up here: https://www.volgistics.com/ex/portal.dll/ap?ap=1848438984

   

 

Kyleigh will graduate from TCC’s Northeast Campus in May 2019 with an Associate of Arts in Teaching degree, and then transfer to UNT to earn a bachelor’s in Interdisciplinary Studies in preparation to become an elementary school teacher.   She is the first generation in her family to attend college, and she graduated from Richland HS in 2017.  Neither of Kyleigh’s parents graduated from high school, so their wage earning capacity has always been low.  She remembers the family (that includes 4 children) being evicted from apartments – one after the other – due to lack of ability to pay rent.  “The one constant in my life was school – I always found joy, peace and consistency in my school classroom or hallways,” she writes. “That’s why I want to be a teacher – to give back to students the joy I received from school as a student.”  Kyleigh lives at home but is responsible for all of her living and educational expenses.  She works many hours a week for the income to pay her expenses…this scholarship is a blessing to her.  It allows her the opportunity to pay for tuition and buy all of her supplies; this will put her ahead as she begins to save for her costs at UNT.  Her words of thanks are below: