Fourteen-year-old Angelina Zhang stands in front of a laptop in a dimly lit amphitheatre at Crofton House school awaiting instructions from a faceless voice on the other end of the computer in St. Louis, Missouri. The amphitheatre’s small audience, mostly made up of elderly men in vests and sashes laden with fabric badges and a few young girls dressed in school uniforms, hushed as the voice came back on. Zhang approached the microphone and read an essay she wrote and memorized about the nature of competition and society’s expectations in hopes of winning $20,000.
This is what the West Coast regionals of the Optimist International’s Oratorical World Championships looks like, as competitors from Arizona, California and other chapters in the Pacific Northwest took turns reading essays they had written to the panel of judges via the Internet.
“We are making history here,” said Al Kersey, lieutenant governor of the Vancouver Optimist Club, pointing out this is the furthest any Vancouverite has gone since the chapter’s inception 70 years ago.
Optimist International is a service organization that spans more than 35 countries, with nearly 3,000 chapters and 100,000 members worldwide. The organization’s aim is to give youth under the age of 18 scholarship opportunities and a platform for volunteer work. Optimist International dates back to 1919, which is also the time when at least one of the Vancouver chapter leaders in attendance was born.
Nearly 2,000 students take part in the Optimist Club’s oratorical contest, which is one of the most popular and longest running competitions sponsored by Optimist International.
Like a lot of girls her age, Zhang, a Grade 9 student at Crofton House school, likes to dance, play tennis and spend time with her friends. But she also had a fear of public speaking, which she decided to face head-on by enrolling in a public speaking course five years ago, joining a debate club last year and giving a go at the Optimist International Oratorical Contest.
“I tend to feel really insecure a lot, but I started to realize the more I spoke and wrote about it, the more I started to believe [I don’t need to be],” Zhang said.
Zhang, with her essay on how her best measures up to societal expectations, titled, “My Best versus the Best,” propelled her through the B.C. zones and the Pacific Northwest District competition. On Thursday, she took the West Coast regionals, winning $5,000 in scholarship money, and made it to the world championships the following day and into Optimist Vancouver’s history as the only local competitor to qualify past the district competition.
Although she didn’t crack the top three at the world championships (only the top three placements are recorded), Zhang, ever the optimist, says she isn’t deterred. “That’s OK,” she said Monday morning. “I’m a bit more comfortable with it now, but I’ve still got a bit to work on.”
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Note: This story has been corrected since first posted.
