BVH students place 1st and 4th in Zone two of the Optimist Oratorical Contest

On Tuesday, April 19th Bonita Vista High (BVH) juniors Eiffel Sunga and Giselle Geering attended the Optimist Oratorical Contest. They performed their four-minute speeches against two other opponents, with Sunga placing 1st and Geering placing 4th. The contest was open to anyone under the age of 19.

“I’m proud of everybody that was in the contest. There were two seventh graders and they did so well. I was so impressed by these people who are younger than me, competing and speaking in front of a large audience. It takes a lot of courage,” Sunga said.

The Optimist Oratorical Contest is a speech contest run by Optimist International, a global service club organization. Tuesday’s contest was Zone two of the Oratorical Contest, an advancement from the first contest formally known as Zone one which was run by the Bonita Optimist club. Geering got first place in Zone one, Sunga got second and senior Noor Alramadan got third. Geering and Sunga were competing in Zone two because they were the top two. 

“There are no real qualifications except the willingness to be a speaker, but notice all of the students memorize their speeches. Sometimes at [the] club level, they don’t do that. They memorize their speeches, they have to sell their point of view,” Treasurer of the Imperial Beach Optimist and Lieutenant Governor of Zone two, Virginia Syverson said.

The speech topic of this year is “staying optimistic during challenging times” so all the speakers gave a speech based on the topic. The topic changes yearly but the running theme is optimism. The contest is open to French, American, and Canadian residents and the speeches can be given in English or French. The top person from each zone moves further and further into the competition until they reach the international level. 

“It’s gone extremely well. The students are wonderful. It’s very difficult to decide [the winner],” Syverson said. “It’s been a pleasant family event where people would come and support their students, families and friends. That’s great.”

Both Sunga and Geering were notified of this contest by their Speech and Debate Coach Eric Helle. Since they both have experience in public speaking and competing in speech events, they both tried their hand in the contest and have been participating in it for three years. 

“I remember hearing about my sister doing it, so I wanted to do it. It’s a cool way to use what we learned in speech and debate to apply it to a real-world competition,” Geering said. “It’s fun to speak in front of people while also being able to pay for college.”

No matter their ranking, both Sunga and Geering enjoyed the process of competing. Sunga, who placed 1st in this latest competition is going to move onto the district level competition with her speech. 

“I feel great. I’m glad that my efforts have been recognized because I worked on memorizing and the delivery of my speech,” Sunga said. “I hope that more people get to or want to join next year. I’ve seen the efforts of the Bonita optimists and the optimists in this zone and they work hard to put together these contests.”