Six First Coast Area High School Seniors Win Rotary Oratory Regional Competition

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Feb. 4, 2015 - PRLog -- Six First Coast area high school seniors won the regional competition phase of the 2015 Rotary Oratory Competition conducted by the Rotary Club of South Jacksonville, Florida. They will advance to the final competition on February 12 at the University of North Florida where they will compete for a $4,000 first place college scholarship and a $2,500 second place scholarship.

The winners are as follows…

-       South Jacksonville Regional: Olivia Ade, Episcopal High School

-       St. Augustine Regional: Abby Murphy, Creekside High School

-       Oceanside Regional: Dwight James, Douglas Anderson

-       Orange Park Regional: Ryan Merrill, Orange Park High School

-       Fernandina Regional: Jolene Stubbings, West Nassau High School

-       Westside Regional: Duneshka Moran-Deleon, Baldwin High School

In addition to these regional winners advancing to the finals for the first and second place scholarships, each winner received a $500 college scholarship. 121 Financial Credit Union, the event’s title sponsor, also gave each student a $100 Starter College saving account.

Forty-six area First Coast high schools were originally invited and a total of 25 seniors competed in the six regionals.

Each student spoke on the subject “What is financial literacy and how will it help everyone personally and their understanding of business, government and world affairs.”

121 Financial Credit Union is the title sponsor for the event and the University of Florida Proton Therapy Institute is the regional sponsor.

The final competition will be a dinner event, emceed by WJXT’s Mary Baer and WEJZ’s Arthur Crofton, at 7:00 p.m. at the UNF Adam Herbert Adams Conference Center on Thursday, February 12.

For more information on the Southside Rotary speech project, email Rotaryexecsec@aol.com.

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