Florida’s Geeta Minocha captured first place April 12 in The American Legion 78th Annual High School Oratorical Scholarship Program.
Florida’s Geeta Minocha captured first place April 12 in The American Legion 78th Annual High School Oratorical Scholarship Program – “A Constitutional Speech Contest.” A senior from Vanguard High School in Ocala, Fla., Minocha earned an $18,000 college scholarship and an all-expense paid trip to the Legion’s national convention in Baltimore.
Minocha, sponsored by Ocala Memorial Post 27, won for her prepared oration, “Our Greatest Honor,” and for her assigned oration on the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted American women the right to vote.
Rowan Macwan, a high school junior from Naperville, Ill., earned a $16,000 college scholarship with a second-place finish, while Emma Skahill, a senior from Earlham, Iowa, earned a $14,000 scholarship and finished third.
“This will provide me an outlet to pursue really my career, my dreams, my passion,” Minocha said. “Paying for (college) was always a huge concern for me, so now that I have at least a scholarship to help me out, I’m a bit at more at ease with myself and my family about that. (And) I think it’s given me a lot of confidence in myself. It’s a sort of this realization that I can do what I put my mind to.”
In her prepared oration, Minocha said the Constitution was not a document that could have declared George Washington a king, but was instead a document “remodeling the government of the United States.” In her assigned oration, Minocha said that while the 19th Amendment paved the way for progress, more work remained. “We must continue to fight for a society in which every citizen is treated equally,” she said.
- Dispatch