Create Hope in the World': Students from Rotary District 5180 deliver hope in the form of a speech
Apr. 29—One by one each of the eight student speakers, labeled only by a letter of the alphabet to protect confidentiality, took the stage Saturday at the Sutter Theater Center for the Arts in Yuba City to deliver a 5- to 8-minute speech on what it means to create hope in the world.
"Create Hope in the World" was the given theme for this year's Rotary District 5180 Speech Contest. The district covers from Oroville all the way to Roseville, and it includes students who have each won club contests at their local high school, Bill Highland, Rotary District 5180 Speech Chairperson, said.
Saturday was the second step toward the 5180 finals held this year at Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nevada, where the overall district winner will walk away with $1,000, Highland said.
The speeches covered a variety of topics that included persevering through natural disasters, such as fires and floods and the COVID-19 pandemic that wreaked havoc on the globe. There were also a few personal touches that judge chairperson Jim Roulsten said is a compelling way to go to score points with the panel.
The judges, like Roulsten, scored the speakers on the enunciation and pronunciation of each speech, the originality of the content and how the content relates to the theme, according to the directions presented to each contestant prior to the contest.
Roulsten, a judge in multiple state and regional competitions, said he was personally enamored with those who use quotes in their speech and ones who provide a personal touch.
The contest winner, Kalyn Peterson of Las Plumas High School, had a "compelling story" to tell, Roulsten said, and ended up receiving two first-place votes en route to the victory.
Peterson, a senior and lead defense attorney for the school's award-winning mock trials team, began her speech with an anecdote dating back to when she was 2 years old and receiving, at the time, an unprecedented surgery for children at Shriners Children Hospital in Northern California. Born with a rare form of Proximal femoral focal deficiency affecting one of her legs, Peterson received a surgery that would block growth in one leg to help stimulate the other leg to grow and catch up.
Peterson said prior to her surgery, it was only performed on adults and if she had not received it, her legs would have been amputated.
As Peterson noted in her speech, she wanted her successful surgery to give "hope" to all children in the world diagnosed with a similar disorder.
While she still struggles with certain abnormalities, Peterson's life is good and she is aspiring to be a disability rights attorney where she'd work to act as an advocate for those who do not know their rights in legal battles against schools and school districts.
"This is a big step in my future career," Peterson said.
Public speaking since she was 4-years-old, Peterson said it takes about a week to develop a speech with multiple rough drafts in the making. But the goal is always the same, Peterson noted.
"My main goal was everyone who listened took something away from my speech," Peterson said.
Tyler Blankenship. of Marysville Charter Academy for the Arts and the Yuba-Sutter Rotary Night Club, won second place. Sarah Jabbarnia of Roseville took home third.
Peterson is the lone student speaker to advance and will go up against three other speakers in the 5180 finals in Reno next month.
