2022 Bailey Oratorical
The Bailey Oratorical is one of Juniata College’s oldest and most prestigious traditions. Started 112 years ago, the Bailey Oratorical competition gives students the opportunity to persuade the audience and hone their public speaking skills. The competition this past Tuesday did not disappoint. The prompt that each speaker was given was to mimic what the New York Times does every year when choosing their “Person of the Year”. The speakers were challenged to think deeply about who deserves such an award — and if the award should exist at all. The finalists selected candidates were very diverse — a State Representative, a first-grade student, and a therapist. Other speakers chose to speak out against the award itself — saying that the award is flawed in nature and is rewarding the wrong things.
While each speech was captivating and exceptional, my favorite was by Alexa Cinque. She chose a first-grade student named Millie, as her nomination for the Person of the Year award. At first, I was a bit skeptical, how could a first grader win such a prestigious award? As Alexa told stories of Millie, I started to understand why she would nominate such a person with little achievements in life — or life experience at all for such an honor. Millie may be a child, but she is caring and kind with a big heart. She strived to protect others and isn’t afraid to tell someone else when they aren’t being nice. Alexa’s speech reminded me that it isn’t the large public achievements that give us our worth — it is the small actions every day and the way we treat the people around us. I don’t know Millie personally, but I think that a lot of people would benefit from learning from her example.
Something that I found very interesting about the 2022 Bailey Oratorical was that two of the seven finalists chose to speak about how flawed such an award is in nature. It was universally agreed on that Time Magazine’s choice of Elon Musk was a mistake — that after everything that happened last year a billionaire didn’t deserve to be honored. These finalists were not ashamed to speak out against the very prompt they were answering. Kayla Blackstock said, “nobody needs the award, it is flawed.” Elizabeth Bailey took the conversation one step further saying that the award encourages only individual success. A ‘me before we’ approach that our culture rewards. It teaches and incentives us to be better than others. Instead of everyone building each other up — we tear others down as we climb to the top. As Elizabeth mentioned, such a system and culture make it admirable to not rely on others. We are primed and taught that asking for help is wrong and shameful. The Person of the Year award rewards success, but maybe not the success we should be rewarding.
Overall, the Bailey Oratorical was once again a spectacular event. Each finalist did a great job persuading the audience of who they think should win the Person of the Year award. Their candidate choices shocked me as they weren’t the big names we are used to hearing. The conversation surrounding if such an award should exist at all was captivating and forced me to reevaluate my own thoughts on success. I wish only that the candidates weren’t limited by time as I would have loved to hear them continue their great speeches.
The photo used in this blog belongs to Juniata College.
