Senior Jacoya Anderson recently competed in a Rotary Speech contest and competed against schools from different districts of Texarkana. Her stellar performance helped her bring home second place in the competition.

Anderson had to write and memorize the entire speech and compete with schools around the city ranging from Pleasant Grove to Arkansas.

“When I prepared, I prepared a week in advance,” Anderson said. “I looked over the paper, like the outline of what was needed in the paper and the speech had to be between 5 minutes but no more than 7 minutes, and it was about four pages long”

All the hard work and preparation paid off, as Anderson came home with the second place award only coming behind a student at Arkansas High School.

Even though Anderson finished well in this competition, she is not slowing down as she is getting ready for her next contest. Her next contest is on April 23.

“I felt like I did very good because I’m really not a talkative person,” Anderson said. “I get nervous really [easily] so I felt like I did very well.” said Anderson.