This year our school held its first online Rotary Speech competition in which a total of 8 students competed. In total only one student could advance to the next level of the competition. This year’s first-place winner was 11th grade student Anisa Oza, and the second-place winner was Angelina Martinez, also in 11th grade.

Due to COVID-19 this year the last competition was held virtually on the 17 of February 2021. There will be five levels of competition: Club, Area, Regional, and District. The winner of the club competition being Anisha Oza advanced to the next level of the competition: Area. This is where other winners from the first level like Anisa Oza competed against other club members in the 2nd level of competition. Although Anisa came in third place, she was still able to get a lot out of the experience, as well as being able to place it on her college resume.

“I think my topic was probably what made me stand out the most,” Anisa claimed. “Other contestants had speeches centered largely around their experiences in Rotary, but those were equally interesting to hear!” Her topic centered around animal cruelty and testing.

This year’s prize list has changed this year, despite it being Mt. SAC ECA’s first time doing the Rotary club competition. The prize for the Club level for first place was $100 and for second place it was $50. It will only get higher as the competition continues, rising in the next competition, the first-place prize will be $2oo and $100 for second place.

According to the Rotary Club website, the competition has the students construct a persuasive argument towards the audience while applying the four-way test. The four-way test consists of four questions the speech must answer: Is it true? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendship? Will it be Beneficial to all concerned? Each speech is scored on four things: Personal, Organization Presentation, and Effectiveness. The speech must land in the 5-7 minute mark for them to get full points for their presentation, max points being 100. There will only be two to three judges throughout the competition excluding District where there will be up to five judges.

West Covina is also hosting a speech competition apart from Rotary Club this year. The West Covina Lions Speech Contest another club much like Rotary there are many levels of competition, it was held Monday, March 15 over zoom. Any high school student even foreign exchange students can join. This year’s theme was Online Learning Pro’s and Con’s.

Interested in participating next year? Contact your English teacher!