Pat Bauer
Cooloola Gold Lions Club hosted their Youth of the Year program earlier this year.
St. Patrick’s College was represented by Madison Ostwold and Leisl Bekker and James Nash State High School by Phoebe Penny, Chloe Bailey and Molly Devereaux.
The students all did their families and schools proud.
The interviews were held at the Supporting Chemotherapy in Cooloola board room on a Thursday morning and the speeches were held during a dinner at the Gympie RSL that evening – the Cooloola Gold Lions thank the RSL for giving them the venue at the last minute venue, when their usual one was not available.
Gympie Regional Council was represented by Councillor Bruce Devereaux who was also the proud parent of one of the students.
The Judges were former teacher Merv Welch, banker Keesha Cook and Councillor Dolly Jenson.
Phoebe Penny was the winner of the Public Speaking contest which consisted of two 2 minute impromptu questions and a prepared speech.
Leisl Bekker won the overall award.
The interviews consisted of the majority of the marks.
Leisl has since gone on to the Region final, hosted at Nanango by the Nanango Lions Club where she represented Gympie well and won through to the District Final hosted by the Fitzroy River Lions Club in Rockhampton.
Unfortunately Leisl didn’t make it to the State final but her speech, “ Has social media killed romance?” was very well received.
Will and Pat Bauer recently returned from the Lions Australia National Conference held at the Gold Coast and the five State winners who competed there in the National Final were fantastic young people.
The Club is looking forward to holding another Youth of the Year program next year and thanks the schools and their staff for their participation and the parents for encouraging such wonderful young people.