The McNicholas Milestone

By Hailey McPheron

On March 6, freshmen Caroline Burkholder and Winnie Hums competed in the yearly Rotary 4-Way Speech Contest sponsored by the Rotary Club of Cincinnati. Rotary Clubs across the nation hold speech contests each spring where students can write a speech about something they feel strongly towards and then they memorize and recite it in a school and local competition.  

McNicholas’s in-school competition was held in mid-February with the winner from that competition participating  in the local competition at The View at Mt. Adams on March 6. Every speech must include the four-way test which answer the following questions: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build good will and better relationships? And Will it be beneficial to all concerned?  

The participants in this year’s competition wrote and recited their speeches as part of the Speech and Debate class, and three students decided to take it a step further. Freshmen Caroline Burkholder, Brock Hauck, and Winifred Hums all memorized their speech and presented it to judges in the library. Hums won the competition and Burkholder was chosen as the alternate, but both were invited to compete in the local competition and won $200 each. Any students can participate even if they aren’t in speech and debate 

English and Speech and Debate teacher Dan Freeman guided them through writing their speeches, “Students were able to write in class, get some feedback on what to improve on and got to see examples of winners in the past.” They also received a recording of their speech that they recited in class to see what they could improve on, and they got to see the scoring sheet used to grade the speeches with feedback.  

Hauck wrote his speech about how music can influence you and said, “I went off of what interests me and what I thought wasn’t brought up.” He was in the speech and debate class too. He added, “It’s really easy to get involved, all you have to do is email Mr. Freeman,” and he felt that the hardest part for him was memorizing the speech that he had wrote.  

Hums said she wrote her speech about the wars that are happening in Ukraine and Russia and the war in Israel and Gaza. “I’ve always felt very strongly that we should be doing more to help these people,” she said. She was also in the Speech and Debate class. “If I hadn’t done that class, I think I still would have gotten involved,” she added. She said the hardest part for her was rewriting the speech when she was told to rewrite some parts. “I kept parts that I loved but I also went back through and said maybe this could be better so I found parts I could improve on,” she said. 

Burkholder wrote her speech about body image and how it affects teens and what we can do to help those around us struggling with body image. “This is something I know so many people go through and I personally felt like it was something I felt in middle school so I thought it should be brought up more,” she said. Burkholder said she found out about the contest through the Speech and Debate class and wanted to compete. She added that the hardest part for her was having the confidence to say her speech in front of the judges: “I just think that lots of people should try it, it was lot of fun.”  

Preparation for the contest begins in the fall and ends with the competitions in the spring. Anyone interested in participating next year can contact Freeman in Room 46 or through email at dfreeman@mcnhs.org.