special giving section – fiscal year 2019
Trevor Busch is an alumnus of the class of 2018 at Marin Primary & Middle School. As a sixth grader, Trevor was the first student in over twelve years to represent MP&MS in the Margie Burke Speech Tournament. He went on to participate in both seventh and eighth grades as well, and he reflects here on how his connections with teachers, classmates, and ideas inspired new skills and personal growth for a lifetime. Trevor is currently a sophomore at Marin Academy.
By Trevor Busch In sixth grade, when I saw there was an elective for public speaking, I chose to take it. And so a journey began. Every Wednesday afternoon, I would go see Margot Koch in the art room and perform “Mockingbird,” by the poet Rives. It soon became apparent that I had two large problems: speaking way too fast and not enunciating clearly. But I didn’t pay that much attention to either, since I was obviously otherwise so good. On the weekend of the tournament I had all the regular stuff, like butterflies and bees fighting a war inside my stomach. But when I started my speech, my nerves left. It wasn’t until I sat down that I realized I had forgotten to present an entire paragraph of the speech that I had worked on for six or eight weeks. I had messed up. But nobody knew, so I thought I was going to get that gold medal. I didn’t. I was one of two kids in that room who didn’t get a medal. And you want to know what I got back on the judging cards a few weeks later? “Slow down, and enunciate.” In seventh grade, I was much better. That isn’t to say that I was some 22
insane motivational public speaker, but I was a lot better than my 6th grade self. This time around I chose my own speech. During Drama class, I had presented part of Obama’s farewell address to the nation. I’d watched it with my mom, and I was really impressed with his speaking skills. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best choice for me. He was a two-term, black, former president of the U.S. But maybe more, the passion wasn’t really there for me and I wasn’t having as much fun. And when I went to the speech tournament, I didn’t win anything. We had a few more kids that year, due in part to me talking about it so much the year before; but as I walked out of the tournament with my friends, I wished I had chosen something that I was more passionate about. I figured I’d have something good next year. For the eighth grade speech tournament (yes, I kept trying), I chose “Dear Future Generations: I’m sorry” by Prince Ea, a YouTuber whose real name is Richard Williams. I chose this speech because he was super inspirational as a speaker. I love to spend time outside and this
was about the topics of pollution and global warming, so it spoke to me. I’m not the sort of guy to stand up in front of people and speak about those issues. But it has also always puzzled me where my passion came from as I spoke. One would think that standing up in front of 30 kids and delivering the same speech at least once a week would really wear on both the listeners and the speakers, but it never did. This is where I have to give a lot of credit to the others in my grade. No matter how many times they heard the same. exact. lines... they would always compliment me with enthusiastic applause. It was like the words moved me, like I wasn’t really in control of my body... and yet I could move in the right way at the right time because my brain always knew the next word. In my mind, doing something like that takes more than rehearsal. It’s more just because I loved doing it. Eventually, the tournament came around. I was super nervous, as ever, but when I delivered my piece, I didn’t think about anything else. I just had fun. I won gold that year.
