This is episode 100, and I wanted to do something a little different for our one-hundredth episode, and I was struggling to figure out what that should be.  Then an opportunity presented itself.  You see, my children are in 4H, and if you don’t know what 4H is, many people describe it as “scouts for farm kids.”  

That’s not quite accurate, as we have some kids from the city in our club as well, but a lot of the projects tend to involve farm animals of some sort, and so farm kids naturally gravitate towards those.  But we also do things like archery.  In general, you can choose what you want to be involved in. However, there is one project that all 4H members must complete each year - writing and delivering a speech.

You have to deliver your speech in front of your club - about 40 kids and their parents, and often grandparents.  If you place 1st or second in your age category, you go on to deliver your speech at the district level and do it again in front of twice as many people.  If you win there, you go on again to the next level.

It’s a fun day, and the members, that is, the children, teens and young adults, often spend weeks or months preparing for it, writing, editing, practicing, and sometimes memorizing their speeches.  Some are secretive about it, not wanting to give any hints to anyone about what they feel is a winning speech.  Others will often recite it to anyone who happens to be within earshot at any given time.  Our club is competitive regarding speeches but in a friendly way.  There is lots of laughing and joking and encouragement and praise from the other kids when it’s done.

Today I want to share with your my eldest daughter’s speech.  Because this is our first year in 4H, this is the first speech she’s ever written at 16 years old, and she delivered it at our local club against many others who had been doing speeches annually for years.  

The external judges our club brought to officiate decided to kill her chances of winning because of the topic.  They placed her 4th out of 4, and everyone in the club was shocked and confused, including the 2nd and 3rd place winners who stepped down so that my daughter could go on to districts in their place.

Now, she anticipated a similar thing happening at the next level.  So, she decided to tweak her speech - not to win, but to have a bigger impact.  At districts, she placed 3rd out of 8, with one of the two judges later telling her that she had scored her speech as the highest score and believed it should have been first, and again, many people came up to her afterwards telling her how great they thought it was and how important the message is to get out.

So, I made her an offer - if she recorded her speech, I would publish it on my podcast as my 100th episode.  Instead of only reaching the approximately 150 people who had heard it, I figured I could put it in front of thousands of people.

If you like it and think it would help others, share it.  If you want to give her encouragement, leave a comment on the blog post, or email me and I’ll relay it.  If you want to hear more about her journey, let me know.  She said she would be willing to share more of it if it will help people.

Without further ado, here’s her speech.

“Mom, dad I don't feel like a girl at all, I’m a boy. I want a new name” Those are words I hope you never have to hear. Unfortunately in today's society where kids are encouraged in this line of thinking you just might.

Hello ladies and gentleman.

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