SUDBURY – Although they gave strong performances at this past month’s Royal Canadian Legion public speaking competition at Branch 177 in Little Current, the Eastern Manitoulin Islanders who advanced to the zone-level competition finished just shy of the threshold of advancing to the district competition.
In the primary (Grades 1 to 3) category, Peyton Legere’s speech on her new puppy Marley earned her a fourth-place finish. Eric Wahl’s junior-division (Grades 4-6) speech on wearisome household chores was worthy of a second-place finish and Xavier Mara’s intermediate-level (Grades 7-9) missive about learning new skills and mastering challenges also ended in a second-place result.
From Western Manitoulin, Riley Hubbard spoke in the primary division about dogs, Amara Wilson-Zegil competed in the junior division with a speech about the importance of failing to ultimately succeed and Willow Fogal in the intermediate division performed a speech about the rock band Queen.
This competition, held at Royal Canadian Legion Branch 76 in the Minnow Lake neighbourhood of Sudbury, took place in late February. The first-place finishers in each division advanced to the district competition.
