As the baseball season opens, we are reminded of Ernest Thayer’s classic 1888 poem “Casey at the Bat” which closes: “But there is no joy in Mudville, mighty Casey has struck out.”
But there is joy in Easton, because Kathryn Murphy, a student at Saints Peter and Paul High School, won her fourth straight oratorical contest in the last seven weeks which has culminated in her pro-life constitutional speech winning the American Legion Oratorical Contest Maryland state finals.
Next up for Murphy is the American Legion national finals at Hillsdale College in Michigan on May 17-19 and an opportunity to win another $25,000 in prize money.
Her oratory win parade started Jan. 29 with the Regina Coeli Council of the Knights of Columbus expanding on its essay contests of the last two years at Saints Peter and Paul High School by adding an oratorical contest that strictly mirrored the American Legion contest in content and format.
That championship, which earned Murphy a $1,500 award from the Knights of Columbus, prepared and propelled her to victories at the American Legion post, district, and state levels.
On March 23, Murphy, a Saints Peter and Paul High School senior headed to the University of Pennsylvania in August, was triumphant in the state finals of the American Legion Oratorical Contest on the U.S. Constitution, beating – among other qualified orators (including SSPP classmate Conner Bryan) – last year’s reigning champion.
Will Trotter, the State Chaplain for the American Legion, said that in the 22 years he has headed up the program, and the nine years he was involved before that, he does not recall a student-orator from the Eastern Shore becoming state champion.
Murphy ended that streak in Towson on Sunday with a confident nearly 10-minute presentation analyzing whether the U.S. Constitution’s articles and/or amendments do — or do not — provide a right to abortion. They do not, she concluded, with a spirited defense of strict-constructionist Constitutionalism and her Pro-Life position.
She then was assigned with five-minutes notice to discuss the Constitutional issues surrounding the 18th and 21st Amendments to the Constitution involving Prohibition and its subsequent repeal.
The Knights intended its oratorical contest to be a precursor to – and prefatory for – the identically themed American Legion oratorical contests, as indeed it was as Murphy progressively won at three American Legion levels.
After winning all four contests, Murphy’s awards total $5,300 ($1,500 from the Regina Coeli Council of the Knights of Columbus; and $300, $500, and now $3,000 from the American Legion for her subsequent wins).
The minimum award at the American Legion Oratorical Contest National Finals at Hillsdale College in May is $2,000, with the champion getting $25,000 and the runner-up getting $20,000. Murphy will be competing with the other state champions, and will be provided with an all-expenses paid trip which also includes one parent for the Michigan event.
Conner Bryan, also a Saints Peter and Paul High School senior, and “graduate” of the Knights of Columbus Oratorical Contest in January, finished sixth at the American Legion Oratorical Contest state finals, earning $750 for a total of his awards of $2,050.
Classmate Will Coughlan, only a sophomore with two more promising opportunities to compete in the Knights of Columbus/Saints Peter and Paul High School Oratorical Contest on the U.S. Constitution, won $1,200 in awards from the Knights of Columbus and the American Legion for his three second-place finishes.
Anyone interested in financially supporting the essay and oratorical contests (naming rights are available for each of the contests if you wish to honor a family member, or a religious, military, or political hero); and/or attending the June 5 awards ceremony/dinner please contact Mark de Bernardo at markanthony5359@gmail.com.
