4-H'ers speak from the heart in speech contest

Area 4-H students tackled a different kind of showmanship Thursday evening as they participated in the 2016 4-H South Panhandle Speech Contest held at the Cheyenne County Community Center in Sidney.

"The 4-H speech contest builds confidence, it teaches them to organize their thoughts and it takes a lot of courage to get up in front of an audience," Cheyenne County UNL Extension Educator Cynthia Gill said.

The contest covered 4-H'ers from clubs in Cheyenne, Kimball, and Banner counties.

Eight students performed their speech, more than half of them first timers to the contest, before an audience of friends, family and the contest's judge, Sidney Councilor and 47th District Legislative Candidate Wendall Gaston.

"They had to conquer a lot of fear in order to stand in front of an audience," Gill said. "I was really impressed and proud of them."

Potter-Dix High School freshman Hannah Stahl was the sole participant in the senior division. The 15-year-old said she spent the last week memorizing her speech.

"I memorized it little bit by little bit," Stahl said. "I memorized the final part of it yesterday. I had to improvise the last part, but it worked great."

While Stahl has been a member of the Bunker Hillbillies 4-H club for nearly five years, this was her first time participating in the speech contest.

"I just kind of went for it," she said.

In her speech, Stahl gave a dramatic performance about the relationship between an exhibitor and their animal project as they prepared to show, drawing from her own experiences showing sheep, swine and goats in exhibitions such as the Cheyenne County Fair.

"It was based on something that happened to me, but I made it more dramatic," she said.

"All of these are original speeches," Gill said. "They wrote their own speeches, and they all relate, in some way, back to 4-H."

Stahl said she chose to perform something dramatic so her entry would be able to stand out from the rest.

"I had a feeling that everybody else would do something funny," she said. "I like being different."

Sidney seventh grader Arya Eledath chose for her speech entry to talk about what brought her into the 4-H program, the First Lego League (FLL) robotics team.

"This is my first year in 4-H, and I really, really loved doing (robotics)," 12-year-old Eledath said. "I've made so many friends, and it created so many opportunities for me."

Eledath said said her love of both robots and Lego bricks made the FLL the perfect fit for her. She said a chance selection to perform a speech for her school in sixth grade was the beginning of her interest in public speaking and what brought her to want to try out the 4-H speech contest.

"Everybody loved my speech, and I loved talking in front of people," Eledath said of her experience in sixth grade.

As for her performance at the contest, Eledath said she did "okay-ish."

"I think I can improve in not always using and looking at my notes," she said.

In thinking about other 4-H projects, Eledath said she will be participating in more things as she continues with the program.

"I'm getting to it," she said. "I really want to try baking and things like that."

Apart from the speech entries, 4-H'ers could also enter audio public service announcements (PSAs) that gave information about the 4-H program and recounted some of their own experiences and accomplishments with the organization.

Following the performances, Gaston, a professional public speaker himself, spent some time talking with the participants to give them some feedback and praise for their entries.

"This is a great place to learn," Gaston said. "Learning to speak in front of people is not easy, but it can be extremely valuable in your future."

Participants were awarded purple, blue, red or white ribbons depending on several factors in their performance including the subject matter, organization, delivery, general appearance and physical behavior.

Performances that earned a purple ribbon will advance to the district speech contest, which will be held on April 23 beginning at 9 a.m. at the Educational Service Unit 13 located at 1114 Toledo St. in Sidney.

"The district contest is a little bit different because the judges are in Scottsbluff, so it's done in a video conference-style," Gill said. "So that can throw them off if their not expecting it. I like to prepare them ahead of time so they know that they are going to be coming in and talking to a camera, not to a person."

For full results of the 2016 4-H South Panhandle Speech Contest, see this Monday's edition of The Sidney Sun-Telegraph.