Fillmore Lions Club annual Student Speaker Contest winner Emilia Magdaleno, a junior at Fillmore High School.

The Fillmore Lions’ Club hosted the Student Speaker Contest on Monday, March 15 with the topic “Distance and Virtual Learning, Pros and Cons”. It was a tightly contested competition with excellent speakers Alanna Garcia and Carmen Isabela Ibarra as finalists and Emilia Magdaleno as winner. All of the speakers had done in depth research, but also shared their personal views. Some of the positive points were that it increases the student’s ability to manage their time, gives them more time to concentrate on each subject and there is no bullying. Negatives mentioned were the strain on the body for sitting so long in one position, looking at a screen all day long, lack of peer interaction, difficulty for those families that didn’t have someone to stay home and help the younger children access the internet and focus on their classes.

The Student Speaker Contest was held at the Edmonds’ Hall in the One Step a la vez facility and was held both live and on Zoom. It is fitting that the event was in the hall named after the last Chairperson of the Speaker Contest, Bill Edmonds. Bill was the Student Speaker Chair for 37 years and passed the chair to his wife, Lynn and Gaylynn Brien.

A special thank you to the judges, FUSD Board Member Tricia Gradias, Dr. Cynthia King and Rev. Bethany Carpenter. President Steve McKeown opened the meeting and congratulated all of the participants.