The American Legion National Oratory Scholarship

The letter below has information pertaining to The American Legion National Oratory Scholarship. 

For this contest students must be in grades 9 -12 and less than 20 years old.  To register for the contest students need to email Mark Kennedy atusmc1965@bellsouth.net and let him know their name, high school, grade in school and a good telephone contact number.

The contest has two phases: 1.0 The “Prepared Oration” and 2.) The “Assigned Topics.”

THE PREPARED ORATION:  The contestants must speak for 8 – 10 minutes (without notes) on any topic regarding the Constitution of the U.S. with an emphasis on the obligations of the citizen to our government.  They must provide a typed, TITLED, manuscript at each level of the competition and their title cannot change as they advance, but the contents of the speech may be “tweaked” at each level.

THE ASSIGNED TOPIC ORATION:  The contestants must speak for 3 – 5 minutes on any one of four Assigned Topics which are drawn at each level of the contest.  In other words, the topic drawn at our District contest of the four will likely NOT be the same as the topic drawn at the Area contest.  The four Assigned Topics for this year are: Amendment 1; Amendment 4; Amendment 13; and Amendment 21.

There is a tpyo in the letter - the actual deadline is January 14 but you must contact him as soon as possible to register.  The guidcance office received this letter on January 8.

The District prizes this year will be: 1^st Place: $400; 2^nd Place $300; 3^rd Place $200 and; 4^th Place $100.  Then, the winner of our District advances to the Area which will be in Eddyville Sunday, February 10 this year and will automatically receive $500 just for competing at Area.  There will only be 3 contestants at Area (Districts 1, 2 and 3 champions) and the winner of the Area advances to State to face the champions from Area B & C and will win either $2,000, $1,500, or $1,000. If a student wins the State Championship, they go to the Nationals in Indianapolis to compete for $18,000, $16,000, or $14,000, but they also receive another $1,500 just for competing.

The American Legion First District Oratorical Contest will be conducted on Sunday, January 20, 2019 at the Murray/Calloway County Senior Citizens’ Center located at 607 Poplar Street, Murray, Kentucky.  Contestants are asked to be at the site at 1:00 PM and the contest will start at approximately 2:00 PM.

Additional information about the contest can be found at www.kylegion.org and you can also email or call Mark Kennedy at 270-752-3333 usmc1965@bellsouth.net