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A spirit that is not afraid

Auburn senior wins biannual Auburn Speaks competition

Auburn’s biannual public speaking competition, Auburn Speaks, took place on Thursday, April 6, at the Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center.

After being established in 2017, Auburn Speaks has continued to showcase and encourage students toward public speaking. Every semester, students from COMM 1000 public speaking courses create informative speeches with the top student from every class moving on to a group of 75 semifinalists. Six students are then selected to become finalists who compete for the honorable Philip Lutzenkirchen Excellence in Public Speaking Award.

“The public speaking competition gives an insight to students who didn’t make it, how hard you have to work to get on that stage and it’s something that they can take away and incorporate,” said Crystal Thomasello, instructor in communication and journalism.

The award is named after former Auburn football player Philip Lutzenkirken. Lutzenkirchen was a communications student. The competition aims to continue his legacy after his tragic passing in 2014 due to a car accident.

Additionally in Lutzenkirchen’s honor was the creation of Lutzie43, a foundation that aims to “inspire people to make better decisions as drivers and friends, using Philip’s life and legacy to inspire change.”

The six finalists talked about a wide variety of topics.

Natalie Ford, freshman in event management, gave a speech on open-water dive scuba certification. 

Then, Zach Harrigan, sophomore in exercise science, talked about sub-two-hour marathons. 

Libby McCracken, junior in English literature, went next and spoke of the ghosts of New Orleans. 

Following McCracken, Zoe Stewart, freshman in professional flight, gave information on the Stonewall Rebellion.

Next, Melinda Walker, senior in psychology, gave her speech on whether to cuss or not to cuss. 

Finally, Fiona Washburn, freshman in nursing, gave a speech about Fentanyl overdoses and Narcan administration.

Following the contestants, Mike Lutzenkirchen, father of Philip Lutzenkirchen, took the stage and spoke about his mission in honoring his son. Lutzenkirchen told students the importance of safe driving and public speaking.

Soon after, the judges announced the winners of the competition. Natalie Ford placed third, Zoe Stewart placed second and the winner was Melinda Walker.

“I’ve met an awesome group of people that are finalists, kind of like a family… It's been an amazing journey,” Walker said. “Building confidence and [an] ability to speak before people has really increased my ability to feel good about myself… I really appreciate that and hopefully, I can give that back to someone one day.”

Walker’s speech was inspired by small things she noticed in her everyday life.

“You usually hear people who you think are in a lower economic status cuss all the time, and that’s really not the case. It’s really not defined to a race or to a culture or even to an age… it’s a wide variety of people,” Walker said. “So I just thought I could do a little research on that and see what I could come up with because there was so much negativity about cussing. I started to try and look for a positive angle and see if there’s anything positive that really comes out… and I just thought 'man, this is an interesting topic to see how people use cursing throughout their daily lives.'”

Jennifer Johnson, director of public speaking at the School of Communications and Journalism, expressed her excitement toward the competition and the opportunity it gives to students.

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“It’s my favorite thing that we do every semester, and as Mr. Lutzenkirchen said, all six of our finalists tonight were winners,” Johnson said. 


Diane Pham | News Writer

Diane Pham, freshman in industrial engineering, is a news writer at The Plainsman.


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