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WENTWORTH -- Haley Pickrell is the winner of the Coleman Southard Grogan American Legion Post 79 Oratorical Contest.

The contest was held Jan. 8 at Rockingham County Middle School, and the winner received $100.

Pickrell, a senior at Reidsville High School, will participate in the District 14 contest scheduled in late January.

Pickrell, 17, is in the early graduate program that allows her to attend classes at Rockingham Community College full-time for the spring semester.

She said her counselor, Mike Marshall, called her the day before the contest and told her he thought it would be good for her to enter.

"I guess because I'm very opinionated and very theatrical,'' she said. "He figured I would enjoy it and I would be good at it."

But Pickrell didn't have long to prepare a speech on "The Freedom of Religion." Since she had recently participated in a Rockingham County Theatre Guild production of "We The People," a play about the Constitution, Pickrell had a "major idea about the freedom of religion."

"I was kind of nervous, but it was the first time I had ever done a speech contest, although I had been doing stage for years," Pickrell said.

When she was announced as the winner, Pickrell said she was "really surprised because everyone did so well. It could have been any of us. I was really shocked, but I was really happy with it."

Pickrell is the daughter of Paula and Greg Colton of Reidsville and has a 15-year-old sister, Sarah. After graduation, Pickrell plans to major in psychology at Appalachian State.

The winner of the divisional contest advances to the regional contest in Raleigh. The regional winner will go to the state contest, said Sam Fretwell, first vice commander of Post 79. The state contest winner receives $2,000.

The finals for the American Legion's National Oratorical Contest are held in Indianapolis, Ind., and the winner receives $18,000 in scholarship money.

Other students in the local contest were Jamar White, Reidsville High; Brittany Manning, McMichael; and Jesse Hopkins, Morehead.

Judges were Wayne Kirkman, Chris Kirkman and Nell Rose, chairman of the Rockingham County Board of Education.

Ann Fish is a Reidsville native but has lived in Eden since 1979. She is a retired newspaper editor and reporter. Contact her at annsomersfish@yahoo.com.