The Eastern Sectional Oratorical Contest sponsored by the Pa. American Legion was held in the Jim Thorpe Area High School auditorium with the theme being the same as it is every year, "The Constitution".

The regions represented in the Eastern Sectional Oratorical Contest are the counties of Carbon, Monroe, Schuylkill, Lehigh, and Northampton and the city of Philadelphia and its suburbs.This year's competition marked the 75th anniversary of the contest with three contestants hoping to advance to the State Oratorical Contest which will be held in Harrisburg on March 10th.The winner of that competition will then go on to the National Oratorical Contest which will be held in Indianapolis, Indiana.While each contestant's primary speech was of a prepared subject of their own choosing, they were then each given the same "Constitution-based" subject to speak on for a five minute follow-up speech.The winners of this year's Eastern Sectional Oratorical Contest were Christopher Anderson in 1st place, Lidya Johnson in 2nd place, and Cleo Massas in 3rd place.The event was hosted by the 30th District of the Pa. American Legion and moderated by Harry J. Wynn III of Post 314 in Lehighton.The contest is open to all eligible students from the 9th to 12th grades and for further information about it go to

www.legion.org

http://www.legion.org