Williston students are getting ready for the semi-final round of the speech contest, as 13 speakers hope their presentations can move others to take a risk.
Prior to the class assemblies on Jan. 24, qualifiers for the speech contest, including Lila Kangethe, Addie Eakin, and Lauren Martinez, spoke to The Willistonian about their preparation for this public event.
Lila Kangethe, a 9th grader from Stoughton, Mass., used her speech to recount her experience shaving her head. Lila emphasizes the importance of taking risks as an essential part of personal growth, and hopes her story inspires others to embrace challenges and step out of their comfort zones.
“Sometimes risks can change everything around you, people’s perceptions, and expectations,” she said. “Though really at the end of the day, you can’t base everything you do on other people, and you must take risks that can benefit your mental and physical health. Otherwise, you will never grow.”
Lila said performing in front of her grade has been a challenge, but one she’s facing head on.
“I used to never do well with public speaking, but I have gotten much better at battling nervousness,” Lila said. “I can control my voice, and where I look but I can shake a lot while public speaking or tap my feet. I am still working on that.”
Returning from Thanksgiving break, all upper-school students were expected to prepare a speech, with the topic of “risk”, that they would present to their English class. On December 29, the winners from each class were announced, later on January 12 the three finalist from each grade were selected, and the semi-finals, which would narrow down to one from each grade, were held Jan. 24 during class assemblies.
The semi-finalists were Izzy Jimah, Viviana Kennedy, PJ Gasasu, AJ Tanihaha, River Grady, Onion Quan, Alice Brashares, Chris Anderson, Sebastian Enriquez, and Carter Cleary.
Addie Eakin, a sophomore from Williamstown, Mass., is also feeling slightly anxious about presenting her speech; however, she views it as a valuable opportunity to do something new.
“I think we should do something like this because, while it is very stressful and I wish we had a little more preparation time, I think it is important for everyone to go out of their comfort zones,” Addie stated. “This unit has really made me realize that I can do scary things like going up in front of a lot of people with only six bullet points and one note card.”
Lauren Martinez, a junior from South Hadley, Mass., isn’t nervous about presenting itself, but feels uneasy about sharing her personal story. Her speech recounts the time she went mountain biking to impress her crush, despite having no experience, which ended with her splitting her knee open.
“Public speaking doesn’t bother me too much; it’s just kind of the aspect of like sharing my story and a part of my life with a bunch of my classmates that I am not even close with,” Lauren said. “I am a little bit nervous about just being up there, because I have never gone up at assemblies before, but I like that it is a competition because I like to win.”
Lauren believes her speech can help others.
“I want people to take away that risks are important, like whenever you take a risk you usually learn something about yourself,” she revealed. “You should also think about why you are taking that risk, because that’s what I learned from my experience, that I was doing it for the wrong reasons, and if I would have done it to challenge myself it probably would have ended up better.”
Shortly after the Jan. 24 class assemblies, the finalists were announced. The final four contestants, who will perform at an all-school assembly on Feb. 21, are: Izzy Jimah, AJ Tanihaha, Onion Quan, and Chris Anderson.
