Borrego Sun - Since 1949

For the fourth year, the West Shores Lions Club is sponsoring the Club level competition of the 79th Annual Multiple District Four Student Speakers Contest.

This prestigious contest is multifold: to provide an opportunity for c-mpetitive public speaking among high school students; 2) to stimulate self-expression and independent thinking; 3) to present to the public through the contests the problems surrounding the maintenance of this commonwealth as a free nation; and, 4) to consider the means at our disposal of meeting present and future world problems.

The statewide contest is sponsored by the Lions Fourth District Students Speakers Foundation, Inc., a California non-profit corporation, that will provide $103,500.00 in total awards for the 2015-16 contest. Winners from local, or club, competitions will advance through five additional contests held during the months of February through May and staged at various locations throughout the state.

This year, the final contest will be held on Saturday, June 4, in Redding, California. The overall winner will receive a cumulative total of US$21,500.00 in cash and scholarship money.

Each level of the contest is adjudicated by professionals from different walks of life; each level also has official timers and score keepers. Students from West Shores High School and Juan Bautista de Anza Charter School are slated to compete this year at the club level.

The West Shores contest will be held at 5:30PM, Tuesday, February 16, 2016, at the POA Building on Sea View Avenue in Salton Sea Beach. The public is welcome although there will be not admittance during an individual speech. Watch for the results here next time!

Good luck to all contestants!

One More Thing. Did you ever stop to think about what a powerful tool your tongue is? Of course, it helps with eating, etc., but it can also help deliver some pretty potent messages, right? What if, for example, in order to prove your own worth, you choose to use your tongue and rancorous wit as a rapier?

You may just cut someone you really care about to shreds or reduce the self-esteem of that someone to a critically low level. If, on the other hand, you use your inestimable grace and good humor to wish someone a great day or to remark about a seemingly insignificant item such as the color of a blouse or sunset or hummingbird, you may make a significant enough impact in that person’s day to change his or her life for good.

That’s powerful – perhaps even the fabric dreams are made of. We just don’t know. So, I’m reminding myself as I trundle through my chores, to be honest but not abrupt or mean, to be kind (after all, it’s been said that “kindness is the intentional effort to pursue what is good for another person…[Hugh Prather]) and to say (openly, as you are able, or silently in thought), “I love you. Without condition. Just as you are.” That, for me, is where it all begins … and maybe where it all ends, too.

Happy Valentine’s Day. Ciao!