Dannevirke High School Head Girl Lauren Carr is off to America and Canada shortly for a four to six-week holiday - her prize for winning the New Zealand Lions Club's Young Speechmaker competition.
Sponsored by the Dannevirke Host Lions Club, Lauren won the District Final, which covers Gisborne to Wellington, in July. Lauren then travelled to Wellington to compete in the national final held in the St Joseph's Church Hall on Saturday August 12.
The task was to deliver a six-minute speech on a topic of her choosing - on the Ministry for Vulnerable Children - and then a two-minute impromptu speech on a topic presented one minute before.
She was 13th out of 15 to deliver her speech and having listened to the first 12 she confessed she wondered what she was doing there as they were so good, with a number of the contestants training at university to become lawyers.
In retrospect she thinks hearing them helped her focus on her message. She spoke on the need to provide vulnerable children with more professional help from social workers with more time and finances and fewer restrictions on what they can say and do.
She does not think creating a new Ministry for Vulnerable Children would help, concluding that its introduction on April 1 was at best "an April Fool's joke".
Those from Dannevirke who supported Lauren thought there was little between the prepared speeches but also agreed it was in the impromptu speech that Lauren shone.
On the topic of freedom she first alluded to the film Braveheart before asking when she would ever gain true freedom - not at university training to be a doctor and then in her professional life.
"Perhaps in retirement?" she asked.
Waiting for the results, Lauren consoled herself that she was just glad to be part of it and to represent her school. She was shocked when she was announced winner and she is still coming to terms with it. Seeing Deputy Principal Diane Sandbrook in the audience made her especially proud to represent Dannevirke High School.
Her prize of a trip she says is "insane" and she will have to renew her passport which has just expired.
This is not the first accolade for Lauren in the last month, as she recently won the Wairarapa SmokeFree RockQuest solo/duo competition on June 24. She was required to submit her rendition of her original song to the national judges to win a place in the finals.
After weeks of waiting she was judged fourth in New Zealand, just one placing short of getting to the Auckland final.
Although disappointed Lauren said she was pleased for her school that she had got that far.