On March 5 from 7:00 AM to 3:00PM, seven MacArthur students competed in the “Speech and Debate Competition 2016” at McFadden intermediate school. Santa Ana Kiwanis Club, Pat Hofferbert, and Sal Tinajero contributed to and organized this event.

The competition consisted of each student having to go through at least one to three rounds with one or two judges. Before speaking, they had three minutes to prepare and since our MacArthur students made it to either the semi-finals or finals, they each had to go through five rounds that included unprepared speaking. Speech teacher Ms. Susan Whitmire, who facilitated the entire process and coached for individual events, said, “I am so proud of what they did.”

Four MacArthur students who participated in the Public Forum, also known as a Debate, were seventh graders Christie Nguyen, who won first place, Jonah Tristan winning second, and Richie Truong who won second with Jonah Tristan. Also winning first with Christie is eighth grader Kaitlyn Vu. In the subject of Impromptu, eighth grader Lina Green won fifth place and in Original Oratory, eighth grader Diego De Leon won second. Winning second place in the Poetry Interp, Joyce Jogwe wrote a poem based on bullying in the point of view from the victim, the bully, and then the witness. Whitmire says, “It was brilliant, meaningful,- it was emotionally touching.”

Whitmire coached for individual events and John De Gree coached debate for the seven categories. Winning first place in Public Forum, Kaitlyn and Christie won a wrestling like belt and everyone received shirts and medals for participating in the contest. This event was the first annual Santa Ana Unified contest and was recognized on the board of education on March 8. “It was a classy event. It felt prestigious,” said Whitmire.

The speech contest was a success due to the help of the Santa Ana Kiwi’s Club, Pat Hofferbert, and Sal Tinajero. The Kiwanis Club is a community service group who say, “We Help the Children of Our Community”. Pat Hofferbert is the first principle of McFadden Intermediate school that contributed to this event. As for Sal Tinajero, he is actually a speech coach at Fullerton and the mayor protem, the person who takes the mayor’s place if anything were to happen.