On the 20th anniversary of Martin Luther King Day, this past Monday, January 16, five members of Tyrone’s award-winning speech team performed four passages from Dr. King’s I Have A Dream speech over the public address system, as part of the Monday morning announcements at Tyrone High.
Junior Joshua Shaffer offered an introduction and reminded students and teachers that Martin Luther King originally presented his famous “Dream Speech” on August 28, 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.
Senior Dustin Brown quoted King’s passage, which expressed the hope that people might be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Senior Aaron Houck read the excerpt from King which promised that with this faith, Americans will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together.
With a booming voice, Senior Todd Boytim presented the passage where King quoted My Country ‘Tis of Thee and invited people to Let Freedom Ring all over America.
In the solemn style of an experienced orator, senior Sean Dickson concluded King’s I Have a Dream speech with phrases from an old black spiritual – Free at last! Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty we are free at last!
Tyrone speech coach Richard Merryman made this observation about the Martin Luther King Day speaking event. For the past 92 years, since the team’s birth in 1913, students on the Tyrone speech team have worked toward two goals. First, to improve their speaking skills and second to enhance the appreciation of other students about great speeches and poems of American Literature through public presentations to all students.
To that end, in addition to competing in their winter and spring speech convocations, students on Tyrone’s speech team have begun practicing to present love poems on Valentine’s Day, Inaugural speeches on President’s Day, Irish ballads on Saint Patrick’s Day, athletic poems on baseball opening day, spring poems at Easter and Patriotic poems at Memorial Day to all Tyrone students by means of a much-neglected tool of technology in most schools, the public address system. Stay tuned to Tyrone’s P.A. system for future broadcasts of memorable literature by the speech team at Tyrone High.
