With a speech given by RHS junior, David Wang, Ripon High defeated Escalon last night, March 3, in the second round of the Annual Lions Club Student Speakers Contest. This is Wang’s third year competing for RHS, and he hopes to be able to advance further than he has in both his freshman and sophomore years.

Wang was originally set to compete amongst students from Tracy High and Escalon High for the second round of the speech contest. Tracy’s representative was unable to attend though, so it was a 50/50 competition. The topic was “How Can Kindness Reunite Our Country?” Wang was successful and will be progressing to the next round in Linden on March 31, where he will be competing against schools from Stockton and Linden.

Wang has had vast experience with speech contests and competing for a while now. Wang describes his favorite part of a speech contest to be the general aspect of being able to get your ideas across without having to be too formal. He enjoys being able to see the other contestants’ views on the topics and offering his own take, himself.

In the first round of the Lions Club contest, Wang was accompanied by fellow junior, Dillan Saltsman. These two enjoy competing so much they even founded the RHS Speech and Debate Club last year. The club meets Mondays during lunch in Mr. Sikma’s classroom, F7, for any RHS students interested in joining. A few of the club members competed in the 3rd annual Ripon Unified School District Speech Contest on February 15, including the two RHS winners: Jenna Skavdahl, sophomore, who won in the underclassman informative category, and of course, David Wang, who won in the upperclassman argumentative category.

“Throughout my life I’ve not only been interested in speech but I’ve always liked to make arguments and to debate against others, so this was just an extension of what I wanted to do,” states Wang.

As Wang continues to advance throughout each round he takes pride in representing Ripon High and the club he had created alongside his peers.

“My expectations for the following round are just to do my best and I’m hopeful we can advance further,” says Wang.

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