{"id":201550,"date":"2026-01-14T21:48:34","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T02:48:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=201550"},"modified":"2026-01-14T21:48:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T02:48:36","slug":"oratorical-contest-to-be-held-in-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/01\/14\/oratorical-contest-to-be-held-in-march\/","title":{"rendered":"Oratorical contest to be held in March"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Submitted information<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Optimist Club of Van Wert will host its annual Oratorical contest on Wednesday, March 4, 6 p.m. at CHP Home Care &amp; Hospice, 1159 Westwood Drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Students are asked to craft a four-to-five-minute speech addressing the topic, \u201c<em>The Moment I Knew I Belonged &#8211; My Definition of Community.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Winners will receive cash awards of $300 for first-place, $200 for second-place, and $100 for third place. The top two local contestants will advance to zone, regional, district, and possibly international level competitions for the opportunity to win $2,500 up to $22,500 in scholarships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The contest is open to all students in Van Wert County who are under the age of 19 as of October 1 and are not enrolled as a degree-seeking student at a post-secondary institution.&nbsp;There is no minimum age to enter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Contest applications are available now at Crestview, Lincolnview, and Van Wert schools or may be downloaded at <a href=\"https:\/\/urldefense.proofpoint.com\/v2\/url?u=https-3A__optimistvw.com_optimist-2Doratorical-2Dcontest&amp;d=DwMDaQ&amp;c=euGZstcaTDllvimEN8b7jXrwqOf-v5A_CdpgnVfiiMM&amp;r=FC13PzDbVZ8qhVsUeHYgLJLYUVcrkfTA5q3JvQduqoI&amp;m=dZHJGBX8sl5wabDt5G_M1kGDtC40DnT07Lr4KSBFrONhLfDxpCv6ElRwRVCLrcqG&amp;s=WladyjD51E4cCdQnRTUr49exkUa3IfELNWwslLbC4Jg&amp;e=\">https:\/\/optimistvw.com\/optimist-oratorical-contest<\/a>. Entry deadline is February 27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Submitted information The Optimist Club of Van Wert will host its annual Oratorical contest on Wednesday, March 4, 6 p.m. at CHP Home Care &amp; Hospice, 1159 Westwood Drive. Students are asked to craft a four-to-five-minute speech addressing the topic, \u201cThe Moment I Knew I Belonged &#8211; My Definition of Community.\u201d Winners will receive cash [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-201550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-04 08:41:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201551,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201550\/revisions\/201551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}