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Marisol Miramontes wins a scholarship for participating in the Miss Merced County pageant.

Los Banos High acknowledges Sophia Castro and Marisol Miramontes who both won awards and some scholarship money. Castro gave a speech for the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), while Miramontes participated in the Miss Merced County.

Castro presented a speech entitled, “Her Responsibility to America” to the members of the Veterans Of Foreign Wars Post #32487. She was especially grateful since her father was also a veteran.  During her speech, she discussed the blessings Americans have by living here. When she was told she won, Castro was shocked and grateful. She was touched that many of the men and women she was able to speak to could connect to her speech in a very positive way.

Being in the Los Banos FFA association, she is able to speak many times, to many different groups and help expand and improve her public speaking skill. One speech she was able to share with me was when she had the opportunity to go to Ontario, California over the fall. There, Castro also won after speaking for the Resource Conservation Speaking Contest.

Another student, Marisol Miramontes participated in her first pageant, for Miss Merced County, winning a $450 scholarship. While in the pageant, she was recognized as having the highest GPA. Her favorite part of the pageant overall was getting to meet everyone and gain new friends with the other girls.

During the practices she was at first shy and just getting to know everyone. Miramontes and the other girls had to work on their walks which help them get a boost in their confidence.

Although this was a great experience for Miramontes, she doesn’t plan on doing the pageant next year. But if she doesn’t have too many things happening, she says she won’t hesitate to join. Joining the pageant allowed her to show the county how much she loves her little hometown of Los Banos.

Several other contests took place within this month.

Merced Mariposa Section Speaking Competition: Los Banos FFA had 10 students compete at the MMS Public Speaking Competition. The chapter had 6th place creed speaker Samantha Jones; a 3rd place creed speaker Holly Ballez, and a first place job interview speaker Corie Lee Falaschi!

Lions Speech Contest: The Lions Speech Contest was held on January 26, 2017 at the Miller and Lux Bulding. Los Banos FFA had a second place speaker Siana Barrett. The first place speaker was Sophia Castro who will be moving on to the district contest.

Rotary Speech Contest: The Rotary Speech Contest was held on January 31st, 2017 at Espanas Restaurant and the Los Banos FFA had four contestants who participated 1st place Corie Falaschi; 2nd place Sage Hackett; 3rd place Hannah Mevi, and 4th Sydney Carrigan.