By James Elijah,
Chapter President
The speech contest is one of the many competitions FFA members do every year to promote the agriculture industry and enhance students’ speaking ability.
This year Ava had three speakers: junior Taylor McDonald, sophomore Victor Wood and senior James Elijah compete. The topics to choose from were Farm Bureau, Cooperatives, Soil and Water, Sheep, Pork, and Young Farmers.
“There were many topics to choose from,” said McDonald.
Taylor, after electing to compete in sheep, chose sheep intelligence as her specific topic. Victor chose pork and James selected Young Farmers as a topic.
The area competition took place Tuesday Nov. 1, in Ava. At area competition the top three competitors are chosen from each group of speech topics and those individuals advanced to districts. Area consists of 19 different schools south and east of Springfield.
Placing for Ava were Victor Wood, 1st; James Elijah, 2nd; and Taylor McDonald, 3rd. Since the top three in each of speech topics moved on to district competition, all three competitors from Ava advanced.
The Southwest District speech contest was at the newly built Darr Center at MSU in Springfield, on Thursday, Nov. 10. At districts, they have a series of rounds. In the first round everyone from area is split into two groups, A and B. The judging panel then selects the top two from each group to move on to the second round. There, the top two selected then say their speeches to people involved in the industry. None of the Ava students made it to the second round, but they enjoyed participating and learned from their experiences.
