The American Legion National High School Oratorical Contest
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
50 Years of Winning Oratjons • In The American Legion National High School Oratorical Contest .. ' National Americanism Commission The American Legion P. O. Box 1055 Indianapolis, Indiana 46206 NATIONAL FINALS CONTESTS AND FIRST PLACE WINNERS Year Location First Place Winners 1938 Norman, OK John Janson 1939 Springfield, IL H. Fletcher Padgett, Jr., Saluda, SC 1940 Boston, MA Thomas E. Haggerty, Rosedale, NY 1941 Charleston, SC Frank Church, Jr., Boise, ID 1942 Milwaukee, WI Albert P. Smith, Jr., Hendersonville, TN 1943 New Orleans, LA Burton Bernard, Granite City, IL 1944 Boonville, MO Brent Bozell, Omaha, NE 1945 Buffalo, NY Robert A. Kelly, Jersey City, NJ 1946 Grinnell, Iowa William O. Wollin, Los Gatos, CA 1947 Charleston, WV Roy F. Greenaway, Fresno, CA 1948 Savannah, GA James H. Grant, Orlando, FL 1949 Philadelphia, PA Paul T. Heyne, Concordia, MO 1950 Phoenix, AZ James A. Robinson, Blackwell, OK 1951 Richmond, VA Jeanne-Mann Dickinson, Roanoke, VA 1952 Baton Rouge, LA Cliff Thompson, Kansas City, KS 1953 Jersey City, NJ Joel M. Bernstein, Buffalo, NY 1954 Los Angeles, CA Jack McNees, Kansas City, KS 1955 Blackwell, OK Michael Miller, Los Angeles, CA 1956 St. Louis, MO Daniel Duckworth, Cleveland, TN 1957 Waterville, ME Dan McCall, Modesta, CA 1958 Portales, NM Reed M. Stewart, Brazil, IN 1959 Lodi, CA Roger R. Majak, Lansing, IL 1960 Penn Yan, NY Lanny Unruh, Newton, KS 1961 East Hartford, CT Robert J. O'Connell, New York, NY 1962 Salt Lake City, UT Patricia Ann Turner, Muskogee, OK 1963 Eau Claire, WI Stephen A. Oxman, Short Hills, NJ 1964 Tampa, FL David Bruce Marth, Wausau, WI 1965 Portland, OR James F. Kay, Fullerton, CA 1966 Henniker, NJ Ronald T. McCoy, Nogales, AZ 1967 Lincoln, NE Alan L. Keyes, San Antonio, TX 1968 St. Paul, MN John Joseph Cangilos, Albany, NY 1969 Boise, ID Benjamin Gene Davidian, Tracy, CA 1970 Houston, TX Michael Patrick Gallagher, Sommerville, MA 1971 Maryville, MO William H. White, San Antonio, TX 1972 Weirton, WV Thomas W. Joiner, Rock Hill, SC 1973 Charlotte, NC John W. Frost, Peoria, IL 1974 Sioux Falls, SD Steven L. Zeller, Columbus, IN 1975 Albany, GA Michael Begley, Baltimore, MD 1976 Springfield, IL Robert H. Maus, Honolulu, HI 1977 Washington Crossing, PA Mark R. Thompson, Glen Ellyn, IL 1978 Klamath Falls, OR Debra A. Morris, Lawton, OK 1979 EI Reno, OK Fernando Baell, Lafayette Hill, PA 1980 Williamsburg, VA Laura Vance, Lawton, OK 1981 Indianapolis, IN Marlene Van Dyk, Grand Rapids, MI Dean F. Clancy, Denver, CO 1982 Bismarck, ND William Kephart, Jr., Chillicothe, IL 1983 Annapolis, MD Keith R. Finch, Blacksburg, VA 1984 Lansing, MI Arthur Jordan, Pittsburg, PA 1985 Des Moines, IA Gwen Connolly, Cedarburg, WI 1986 Tuscaloosa, AL Jennifer Jane Demmon, Marshalltown, IA 1987 Lee's Summit, MO Maryagnes Barbieri, Milton, MA 1 Though several American Legion departments had oratorical contest programs functioning in the early days of The American Legion, William A. Kitchen, an attorney and former Department Commander of Missouri, can be credited with developing the program and having it adopted as a national program. Kitchen first experimented with his idea of an oratorical contest in a few local high schools in and around Kansas City during the school year 1934-35, using "The Constitution of the United States of America" as the subject for the orations. Shortly after Earl H. Shackelford was elected Department Commander of Missouri, at Columbia, in 1935, he appointed a contest committee with Kitchen as chairman. This committee planned and carried out a successful department-wide contest during the 1935-36 school year. The committee developed rules, many of which are incorporated in the present national rules. They developed the elimination procedure, still in use in determining state and national champions. In that first year, $500 in cash prizes were awarded to the four state finalists. Medals were awarded to winners of lesser contests. The first state finals contest was held in the State Capitol of Missouri, Jefferson City, on May 2,1936. Each of the four finalists (zone winners) delivered a six-minute prepared oration and a four-minute extemporaneous address on the Constitution of the United States. Thomas Tierney ofSt. Louis and Charles Brown of Springfield tied for first place in that first state finals contest. After an hour of deliberation, the judges awarded first place to Tierney. The success of the Missouri program reached National Headquarters and three years later, the activity became a national program. Eleven departments with over 4,000 students competing, took part in 1938. That same year, the first national finals contest was held at Norman, Oklahoma, with John Janson of Phoenix, Arizona, being judged the first national champion. Since that time, over $1.4 million in college scholarships have been awarded at the national level of competition. JOHN JANSON PHOENIX, ARIZONA The Need Governmental Reorganization The first annual National High School Oratorical Oklahoma, and Mary Buckley of Cambridge, Contest was held June 1, 1938, at the University of Massachusetts, was fourth. The June issue of The Oklahoma in Norman. The winner of that contest was National Legionnaire reported " ... the scoring of Janson John Janson of Phoenix, Arizona. He received an and McElin was so close that the judges had to figure engraved wristwatch, a four-day trip to Washington, fractions to determine the winner." \. D.C., and an invitation to appear on the floor of the 1938 National Convention in Los Angeles, Califomia. In his winning oration, Janson said, in part: Janson was selected as the national champion by "This is the great challenge to American democracy defeating three other national finalists. Second place today: To make democracy work; to keep a democratic, went to Thomas McElin of Aurora, Illinois. The third efficient, workable government that can cope with all the place finisher was Treva Davidson of Tahlequah, old and new problems and responsibilities forced upon 2 us by the mechanization and industrialization of the so~ved by hard work, by intelligent citizenship, by Twentieth Century, and to keep in step with the wldespread public education, by constant vigilance, by boundless technological and scientific progress that is yet rejection of old prejudices and outworn ideas, by a to come ... determination on the part of all the people to make democracy work so that their faith in democracy will be "It is our responsibility and must be our destiny to prove justified. to ourselves and to a suffering and disillusioned world that democracy can exist, can grow, and can flourish in "It is too much to ask that we, in 1938, meet our this modern age. problems as fearlessly, with as much determination and foresight, as those founding fathers met theirs? Is it too "This is not a responsibility that can be shouldered much to ask that we build one in 1789, to serve merely by fine words, and inspiring orations, but must be adequately the purposes of American democracy?" 1939 FLETCHER PADGET, JR. SALUDA, SOUTH CAROLINA The Citizen's Appreciation of the Constitution of United States of America Note: Fletcher Padget won the South Carolina state finals contest which made him eligible to compete in the National Southeastern Regional Contest which was held at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 9, 1939. Five days later he won the national finals contest at Springfield, Illinois. For his efforts, Padget was awarded a $4,000 college scholarship given by noted radio and screen comedian Eddie Cantor, and was invited to appear on Cantor's radio program on May 1,1939. Padget later attended the University of South Carolina and received his law degree in 1948. He practiced law in Columbia, South Carolina, and also taught at the University of South Carolina Law School Does the average citizen of the United States of America of making a living for himself and his family, and in appreciate the Constitution? Does he know its value and facing the common and everyday problems of his life to the rights guaranteed to him thereunder? Does he stop to appreciate fully the protection provided by the Constitu consider the price at which it was purchased? Is he tion. He takes for granted the rights which he enjoys and willing to make the necessary sacrifices in order that which were guaranteed to him under the provisions of these rights may be perpetuated for himself and for this the fundamental law ofthis land. He and his immediate posterity? predecessors are too far removed from the time when these rights were secured. He does not read the history of Upon the answer to these questions depends whether or its making and is unacquainted with the trials and not the citizenship of America will be lost and engulfed in difficulties which the founders of this great republic the "Isms" that threaten to destroy the democracies of the suffered and endured in order that this great document, world, or whether this nation will come triumphant with all of its meaning and protection to every citizen, through this period of the world's history which is might be made the cornerstone and bed-rock upon marked by socialistic, communistic, and individualistic which this nation was founded. trends of thought and action. "The founding Jathers of this grand Palladium of The average citizen of the United States, the man that Liberty," believed and has faith in the ability of the you ordinarily meet upon the street or upon the highway, people to rule themselves. They believed that the people does not take the time to consider what the Constitution were entitled to a form of government which recognized means to him. He does not know that our Constitution is the inalienable rights of its citizens.