A passionate plea for students to put down their iPhones, iPads, etc and pick up a book won the Rotary Club 4-Way Speech Contest on March 9 at the joint Rotary Club of Hudson and Hudson Clocktower Rotary Club breakfast meeting at Laurel Lake Retirement Community. 
 
 
Hudson High School senior Kate Greer won the $400 prize after a panel of Rotarian judges selected her speech as the first place speaker out of four finalists.  Kate will now go on to compete on April 2 at the Rotary District 6630 competition against other local winners from northeast Ohio.
 
The other winners in the speech contest were WRA junior Jianne Kang, second place ($300), WRA junior Paul Schumacher, third place ($200) and HHS sophomore Maria Zou, fourth place ($100).  Each of these four contestants competed previously against students from their own school and then moved on to the local finals.  The students were instructed to pick a topic that they are passionate about and then apply the Rotary 4-Way Test...Is it the Truth?  Is it Fair to All Concerned? Will it Build Goodwill and Better Friendships? and, Will it be Beneficial to All Concerned?  
The timeframe was 4-7 minutes and none of the contestants used a single notecard during their speech.  Jim Ahern and Ted Olson, Rotary Speech Contest organizers thank Western Reserve Academy English teacher Matt Peterson and Hudson High School English teacher Bryan Carr for their help in coordinating the event at the schools.
 
The Rotary Club of Hudson strives to offer informative and entertaining programs for each weekly club meetings.  Visitors are welcome to attend the meetings and see what Rotary is all about.