2022 Division C Contest

The first in person contest season since 2019 continued with a fun drive to Punxsutawney this morning.

After a quiet commute the weather changed just as I passed Indiana. From there, the journey to Punxsutawney got a little more exciting.

I arrived at my destination, the Cobblestone Inn and Suites in Punxsutawney just before 10am and was greeted by my fellow Toastmasters Dana Mitnik and Bob Johnson. I talked to Dana about taking on an officer role for Laurel Highlands Toastmasters in 2022-23. Before long Bob (Chief Judge) and Joe Arnold (Toastmaster and Contest Chair) gathered up their officials and contestants for pre-contest briefing.

The evaluation contest was up first and three contestants took part in it. Anna Lisa Haughwout representing McKeesport; Dave Jones representing Johnstown; and, Jim Teague representing Greensburg. Ryan Jacobs was the model speaker and the speech he gave at Laurel Highlands on Tuesday night was the one he also gave at the contest.

Ryan spoke about fatherhood, having recently become a new dad. What I took away from the speech was that the importance of a father in a child’s life is paramount. As we were leaving, I recommended that he check out the movie Courageous sometime. I remember seeing the movie with my church in 2011 and it’s a great film about fatherhood.

The evaluation contestants all gave great feedback to the model speaker. This was going to a difficult contest to judge. Joe Arnold took five minutes to interview the model speaker and we learned a lot about Ryan.

During the break I chatted with Dana who was complimenting me on my sense of style. Jackey Collier, District 13 Club Growth Director, did so as well, complimenting me on my leopard scarf. As Maura used to tell me, leopard print is my trademark. Shanda Kelsch, competing in the International Speech contest and representing Elk County Toastmasters did the same. It matched her heels she wore for the contest. I told her the story of how I had to sacrifice my scarf to save my pink Coach purse (with the cherry 🍒 charm). She’s a fan of Coach too.

The speech contest was amazing. Six quality contestants who would be hard to judge. Being a judge at these events is one of the toughest jobs you can take on. I’ve done it many times though.

Joe was a master interviewer as we waited for Bob and his team to tally up the votes for who the best evaluation contestant and speech contestants were. The top two winners from today’s division contest would go on to represent District 13 in the District Evaluation and International Speech contests (the Evaluation contest is April 29 and the International Speech contest is April 30).

Dave Jones and Jim Teague will go on to represent their clubs and the district on April 29 in the Evaluation contest. In the International Speech contest, it will be Shanda Kelsch and Sharon Joseph competing for the title of the District champion. Maybe one of them will even make it to the big stage at the World Championship of Public Speaking this Summer.

I had to turn it down but a big group of District 13 Toastmasters stopped for lunch at Papa Sal’s in Blairsville.

I’ll be in attendance next Saturday for the Division D contest which will be held at Scaife Hall in Oakland on the Pitt main campus. The conference remains to be seen but I hope to come at least one day out of the three.