On Wednesday, Feb. 5, the Rotary Club of Burton-Middlefield held its yearly Four Way Speech Contest at Welshfield Inn Party Center. The contest is held yearly for students from Cardinal and Berkshire school districts and challenges the students to write and present to the club a short five to eight-minute speech about a current and pertinent topic and apply it to Rotary’s 4-Way Test motto.
The 4-Way Test which is:
1. Is it the truth?
2. Is it fair to all concerned?
3. Will it build good will and better friendships? And
4. Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
This motto has served Rotary since its founding in 1905 and is Rotary’s motto of the things we think, say and do in our daily lives and our business dealings. The speakers then present to the entire Rotary club and are graded by the club members on numerous parts of the speech and their presentation.
There were five contestants this year, two from Berkshire and three from Cardinal. All the speeches were very good which makes it difficult to pick just one winner. The five student speakers were; Jay Harr, a junior from Cardinal, Ellie Rayburn, a sophomore from Cardinal, Chloe Dubasik, a sophomore from Cardinal, Wilson Jackson, a junior from Berkshire and Hope Zagar, a sophomore from Berkshire. Top honors went to Wilson Jackson whose speech topic was “Helping others when they are being bullied, saying something when you see something”, second place to Ellie Rayburn “Expectations for perfection” and third place to Hope Zagar “The internet and privacy”.
The winner now gets to practice and brush up until April 11th when he will present his speech at Kent Roosevelt High School in Kent, OH. Here hewill compete with dozens of other winners from all over Rotary District 6630 which encompasses the seven counties in northeast Ohio while competing for thousands of dollars in scholarships.
