PHC Freshman Haley Bock just won the American Legion 2023 National Oratorical Contest (story here). If the winning speech wasn't amazing enough, her acceptance speech certainly was twice over.
On August 29th 2023, PHC freshman Haley Bock gave her acceptance at the American Legion National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina along with other national champions.
In front of 10,000 American legion legionnaires, Bock gave a far-from-ordinary two-minute acceptance speech. “Ten generations ago, our forefathers gave their lives to begin a new world. They drafted a document with the freedom of generations on their minds. Empires are saved and nations are preserved when men and women consider the lives that may follow them, not the flicker of light that is theirs, but the flames that will one day be a light in the darkness,” Bock said in the opening of her speech.
She went on to say that the American Legion National Oratorical Contest is a picture of America striving for self-preservation. She thanked members of her Post back home for helping her generation become the generation that knows where it rose from, and teaching them that if they want to make a lasting impact, to see their country change, they must think of the lives around them.
“My generation is searching for truth,” Bock said, "We are searching for a lasting meaning—for a larger purpose. There is only one place where it is found and that is in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ—the knowledge of what He's done for us and the knowledge of who we belong to."
Read about Haley’s experience at the contest and her journey to PHC!
She concluded by thanking legionnaires for their service: “for carrying the burdens of our nation, for fighting for the freedom of our children, for standing on the truth and giving us home. May God bless you all and may God bless America."
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Patrick Henry College exists to glorify God by challenging the status quo in higher education, lifting high both faith and reason within a rigorous academic environment; thereby preserving for posterity the ideals behind the "noble experiment in ordered liberty" that is the foundation of America.
