One of Ridley College’s oldest traditions, The Upper School Public speaking competition was held yesterday afternoon.  The topics ranged from tire safety to riding coach on an airline, Toddlers and Tiaras to following your dreams.  The speakers were engaging and entertaining and should be proud of their speeches. The winners are as follows:

Ashleigh Sternberg in the Junior Division who entertained the audience with the pleasures of sitting in coach while flying:

Sunshine Wang won the Tony Kwok Memorial Prize.  This is a relatively new prize started by the Kwok family to recognize English Language Learners who participate in public speaking.  Former student, Thomas Kwok ’10 was in the audience.  It was his idea to sponsor the prize after he felt a great sense of accomplishment after he participated in the public speaking competition when he was in school.  Wang talked about China’s One Child policy and reasons why it should be abolished in her speech:

In the senior division Andrew Pace won the Dr. W.H. Merritt Memorial Prize for his speech about the fictional group he was starting called ‘Facebook Anonymous.’  A timely topic talking about the pitfalls of the social networking tool.

Lopez was the runner-up and won the Hon. Mr. Justice A. Courtney Kingstone Memorial Prize.  Last year Lopez won the Tony Kwok Prize: