Estancia High speaker takes contest

Elia Powers

An Estancia High School junior outspoke three classmates earlier this

week and will move on to the next round of the 68th annual Lions Club

Speech Contest.

Junior Carolina Barnes, 17, impressed the two judges from the

Costa Mesa-Orange Coast Breakfast Lions Club Thursday with a

seven-minute speech given at Mimi’s Cafe in Costa Mesa.

Lions Club chapters nationwide pair up with their local high

schools and provide judges for the competition, which is intended to

help students improve their speaking skills. Estancia High and the

Costa Mesa-Orange Coast Breakfast Club have formed a partnership.

According to Costa Mesa-Orange Coast Lion’s Club member Tom

Gielow, one of two judges at the event, three participants received

$25 and Barnes took home $50.

The national winner can receive up to $10,000 in scholarship money

from the Lions Club, an international organization with 1.4 million

members in nearly 200 countries.

Each speech contest participant receives the same topic in

advance. This year’s question: Is attitude a key to success?

“At first, I was worried because the topic seemed hard,” Barnes

said. “Once I started writing, the speech came to me.”

Barnes’ talk focused primarily on athletics. She provided examples

of relentless physical pursuits, such as a snowboarder falling down

repeatedly but getting up, and a basketball player making less than

50% of his shots but still being a leading scorer.

“If we all shoot many times in our lives, we can score big too,”

she said in her speech.

Barnes, Estancia’s junior class president, said she entered this

year’s contest to become more comfortable speaking in front of a

crowd.

Barnes now advances to the district competition to be held March 3

at 6:30 p.m. at the Newport-Mesa School District offices in Costa

Mesa. Official entrants in the district event will be announced by

the end of the month.

The students will read the same speech at the district event,

Barnes said.