2012 Speech Contest

Posted by Bill Wicker

The club round of the annual speech contest was held Monday February 21^st at our regular meeting. It was held jointly by our club and the Plant City Daybreak Rotary club. The contest was organized and emceed by Rotarian Amity Kokochek. Area high school students from Plant City High School and Simons Career Center competed for cash prizes and the right to represent the 2 clubs in the next round of the speech contest. This year’s contestants included Jasmin Gomez, Rosa Puente, Casey Hamilton, Kaila Thomas and Tricia Beck.

The Plant City students were accompanied by counselor, Sherrie Mueller and the Simmons students were accompanied by counselor, Andrea Jean. Each student had 5-7 minutes to speak on this year’s theme; “Reach Within to Embrace Humanity.” Each contestant was selected to speak in random order and judges did not know their names or schools before their speech. The students were judged on the Content (originality, creativity, imagination, human interest, understanding of Rotary), Organization (effective introduction, orderly, logical body, clear points and transitions, logical conclusion), and Delivery (vocal clarity, projection, diction, pronunciation, expressiveness, posture, gestures, eye contact).

First place went to Casey Hamilton and second place was awarded to Tricia Beck. Casey received $100 and will represent the Daybreak Club at the next level of competition and Tricia received $75 and will represent the Noon club at the next level of competition. Third place winner Kaila Thomas received $50 and fourth place winner Rosa Puente received $25.

Tricia Beck and Casey Hamilton

The next round of the speech contest will be at the group level. The Group 5 speech contest will be held on Tuesday, February 28^th at Florida Southern College. Winners from each club will give their speech to compete for the opportunity to go to the District Level in April. Good luck to Casey and Tricia as they represent our clubs and our community at the next level.