Students from Carbon County high schools will deliver speeches at 10 a.m. Tuesday, May 1 at Penn's Peak for the annual Carbon County Oratory Competition.

Each high school will be represented by one male orator and one female orator. Competitors write their own 5-8 minute speech and deliver it to a live audience. Trophies will be awarded to the top male and the top female orators. All of the speeches will be between five to eight minutes long but could be about any subject and be in any style.The judges will score participants on a scale of one to 11 in the following areas: substance, structure, style, bodily Carbon County Oratory Contest is a long-standing tradition that began as the Carbon County Principal's Association Oratorical Contest years ago with participants from Jim Thorpe, Lehighton, Palmerton, Panther Valley and Weatherly.Last year winners were Sam K. Smith, a Palmerton student, who spoke on the gift of life, and Michael Trainer, a junior at Jim Thorpe, who's speech "The Handprint" was about local history.