The finalists for this year’s Lincoln Academy Achorn Prize Speaking Competition were, from left: AJ Shepherd, Niko Rice, Amelia Rice, Aowyn Burbank, Maddy Kallin, and Connor Parson.
Lincoln Academy’s annual Achorn Prize Speaking contest took place on Friday, April 28 during Lincoln Academy’s weekly community meeting. Due to pandemic restrictions on large gatherings, the competition has not taken place since the spring of 2019.
A long tradition at Lincoln Academy, the contest was established by Edward Achorn in memory of his mother, Mary Rundlett Achorn, to celebrate the art of great oratory. This year’s topics ranged from modernizing religion to adventures on the Appalachian Trail. Judges scored speeches on language, delivery, organization, and content. The 2023 judges were English teacher Brian Smalley, social studies teacher and debate team coach Kathleen Halm, Director of Special Services Laurie Zimmerli, and Skidompha Teen Services Librarian Kristi Favaloro.
Senior Aowyn Burbank
Senior Aowyn Burbank spoke about how religion is an important force for connecting people, and that increasing secularism has negative implications for society. In her speech she advocated for religious faith groups to modernize in order to stay relevant to young people and help reverse the division and isolation in our current society. “To continue as a young evolving generation,” Burbank said in her speech, “we must keep our religious communities intact by reshaping them to fit our values, our morals, and our lifestyle.”
Junior Maddy Kallin
Junior Maddy Kallin talked about her experience hiking the Appalachian Trail with her family when she was just eight years old, and how being the youngest person ever to through hike the trail taught her lessons about resilience and team building. “The mountains can be unforgiving,” she said, “they give you hail when all you want is sun, they push you to the point where you want to give up. But then they bring you the people who will remind you that you are stronger than your adversity.”
Junior Connor Parson
Junior Connor Parson spoke about free will, and how to reconcile theories of physics that claim that decision making is simply a series of chemical and physical reactions with the reality that each decision we make feels free. He found his own resolution to the paradox this way: “I like to think of the way human actions are made as ‘functional chaos.’ Even if a person’s actions are predetermined, there is so much out there that a person functionally has free will in their day-to-day life. It’s just a matter of finding the moments where the choices you make are, in effect, free.”
Freshman Amelia Rice
Freshman Amelia Rice spoke of the recent trend of banning books, and how banning books anywhere, at any time, limits freedom and undermines education. “The practice of banning books reverses strides made towards the representation and acceptance of all, violates the First Amendment, and can create education gaps that are absolutely preventable,” Rice said. “You all have the power to learn more and to enter this world as open-minded, intelligent, empathetic adults by reading banned books. You can learn about stories that are sometimes glossed over in history, or ignored in the media. You can help amplify voices that are often silenced. I encourage you all to read banned books and challenge systems that can silence the voices of minorities.”
Senior Niko Rice
Senior Niko Rice spoke about his quest to find an old cemetery near his house in Nobleboro. “Behind my house, buried deep within the woods and hills and trees, nestled on a knoll, is an ancient burying ground. Since the bodies here were laid to rest many years ago, so many that not a soul can recall who was placed in this spot, it has been buried in leaves and pines and puckerbrush.” Rice told the story of finding the lost cemetery and pondering the meaning of lives that came before us. He concluded by saying that everyone who is buried in ancient, lost places should still be remembered because they built what we have today.
Senior AJ Shepherd spoke about the beauty and brilliance of chess. He began, “chess is a universal language. Chess transcends culture, education, and life experience entirely. This universality gives chess a certain beauty that is hard to find in other places.” He concluded, “I feel that it is necessary and proper to establish an after school chess club….We can kindle the spirit of competition and nurture a healthy hobby, which has been linked to raising IQ, improving memory and pattern recognition, increasing critical thinking skills, and enhancing strategic thinking. Not only that, but it gives students another chance to bond over a common interest and form meaningful, lasting friendships. This is the beauty of chess.”
After deliberating, the judges awarded first place to Niko Rice, a second place tie to Connor Parson and Amelia Rice, and third place to Aowyn Burbank.
“It was the best group of Achorn speeches I have ever seen,” said LA social studies teacher and debate coach Kathleen Halm. “I have judged many speeches in debate, and this was so much harder because they were all excellent. The delivery, the content, the organization, they were just spot on. That made judging really hard.”
“The last time this competition took place, this year’s seniors were in eighth grade,” said LA Library Director Laura Phelps. “None of them has ever seen it before. We did not know what to expect when we put out a call for speakers.” To Phelps’s surprise, more than two dozen students expressed interest, and 11 submitted speeches. “We had to do two rounds of preliminary competition in order to narrow the speakers to six, which was all we could fit in a 40 minute Community Meeting.
“I am thrilled that so many students are embracing the challenges of public speaking and putting themselves out there. The feedback I received from faculty and students alike was overwhelmingly positive.”
