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.