The Shawnee Optimist Club awarded a group of young writers at their Thursday meeting for work in a recent speech and essay contest.
The categories for the contest include oratorical writing, which is designed for public speaking, while the essay category is more about storytelling. The first-place winners of each category received medals for their achievements and read their work in front of the club. The topics for both success pieces revolved around reaching your dreams and healing the world through optimism.
“It gets you really deep into it and you think, am I a pessimistic person, am I an optimistic person?", asks Aya Eissa, the Oratorical Contest winner. "How can I change me being a pessimist or how can I make myself a better optimist? That’s what I kind of wrote about. Making people more optimistic because optimism literally spreads kind of like COVID-19.”
“Truth and optimism are interconnected," explains Emily Manuel, the Essay Content winner. "And I really felt from COVID and from other things that have been happening, that that has really been furthered and that was something I felt like I should talk about.”
Both first-place winners are students at Shawnee Local Schools.
Other winners include:
Alexandria Karapondo - 2nd place in Oratorical Contest
Taylor Lichty - 3rd place in Oratorical Contest
Claire Huff - 2nd place in Essay Contest
Taylor Wisser - 3rd place in Essay Contest
