Junior Michael Horne won four regional levels in the Lions Club speech contest starting in February and ending in May, performing his take on the prompt, “Community service: What does it mean and why does it matter?” He competed, won, and moved on until he ended his journey at the fifth level in San Diego on May 24. Horne earned over $4500 in scholarships toward college, and learned much about himself along the way. “I went in thinking it was just gonna be speaking and that’s it, but it turned out to be more than that. I learned that public speaking includes the people involved as well [as] stopping to smell the roses along the way. This went from a speech contest to a life-realization moment.”

Here is a concluding excerpt from his award-winning speech.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/154154150″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”30%” height=”100″ iframe=”true” /]