Students Compete in Rotary Speech Contest

Four Ledyard High School students competed for scholarship money in this year’s Rotary Club Four-Way Test speech contest. The competition requires students to pick a topic and evaluate it using the Rotary’s Four-Way Test:

• Is it the truth?
• Is it fair to all concerned?
• Will it build goodwill and better friendship?
• Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

The speakers competed last week, at which the field of four was narrowed to three. Judging the contest were school board Business Manager Bill Merrill, club President Dave Thompson and Ledyard Patch editor Bill Thorndike.  English teacher Barbara Park coached the students.

Kim Codding spoke about our constitutional rights as Americans, particularly the right of free speech. She asserted that rights for which many bled and died may at times appear to exist more in word than in deed.

Margeurite France addressed the practice of using animals to conduct scientific research, a practice that she said is neither fair nor beneficial to the animals, and does little to advance good will.

Elliott Pillsbury spoke about a shaman apprentice program that he observed personally in the rain forests of Costa Rica. The purpose of the program is to preserve local medicinal knowledge and practices, and to protect them from encroachment and possible exploitation by outside interests.

Pillsbury described how this effort satisfies each of the points in the Four-Way Test.

Porter Reim took a bit of a gamble, choosing as a topic the Rotary Four-Way Test itself. His thought-provoking analysis addressed the nature of truth, and noted that what might be beneficial to one group may come at a cost to another.

Despite a game effort, Reim failed to make the cut. As Park later observed, understanding one’s audience is an important part of public speaking.

At a subsequent Rotary breakfast, the top three students delivered their speeches. Codding was awarded $300 for first place; France received $200 for second place and Pillsbury took third, and was awarded $100.

Codding will advance to the area competition in January, where she will complete with speakers from 15 other Rotary Clubs in the region.