Lauralee's Toastmasters Reflection

Picture Taken For a Previous Award

I am extremely happy to announce that I have completed Toastmasters' Advanced Communicator Gold today. I started My Toastmasters Journey in 2016 as a solution to needing an audience for my Public Speaking class at Oregon Coast Community College. Little did I know that starting in Toastmasters would change my life.

After giving my speeches for the class, I was convinced to keep going and finish the Competent Communicator. The system was addicting and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my progress through pages completed. In 2017, I I jumped at the chance to complete a District level role through being a Pathways Guide.

It was at that point that I realized I had a passion for educating and serving the consumer. I switched my major to Business Administration: Marketing. Now, I am in my last year of my Bachelor's in Business Marketing.

So far, I have served as the Vice President of Public Relations at Yaquina Toastmasters, a Pathways Guide for the Coast, and the District Public Relations Manager.

In my time at Toastmasters, I have found many friends and mentors along the way. Dave Coffman challenged me to go beyond technical speeches. Laurie Weitkamp encouraged me to share personal speeches and not be afraid of showing emotion. Paul Brookhyser was always there to lift me up and motivate me. Lee Ritzman helped me prepare speeches and offer insights for my speeches on Germany. Avital Miller worked with me to complete my Pathways speeches. Christa Colway has supported my crazy ideas for Public Relations and helped me reach my goals. Brian Haggerty encouraged me to go outside of my comfort zone and compete in club contests. Svetlana helped me navigate online meetings. Brian Norris has walked me through many speeches to help me fine tune my message. The newer members of the club like Pam and Larry have sparked my curiosity with their speeches and experiences. John Rodke encouraged me to push the boundaries of my mind and let myself grow. Crystal and Donna motivated me to become more involved in the Toastmasters community.

Throughout this journey, I have been touched by the support of my Toastmasters community and I am excited to see where my journey takes me from here.

Our Halloween Celebration

August 14th Meeting

August 7th Video

Have you seen our Queen?

June 26th Meeting

We had a great meeting today full of stories, communication styles, and topics of gratitude. We laughed, thought, and even squeezed a heart. Congrats to Christa our Table Topics winner for this week.  Remember no meeting next week 7/3. See you in two weeks.

June 19th Evaluations

June 19th Table Topics

June 19th Meeting

Brian became the Toastmaster of the day due to the technical problems. He was evaluated by Dave, who said the meeting did start late because of the internet problems. Dave also said that he had good introductions for people and was able to run the meeting despite the interruptions.
Our first speaker of the day was Jalene, who have a preview of her speech for her Women's Symposium coming up this weekend on June 23rd. Her theme was letting your heart make some decisions. Jalene had gone on a motorcycle trip where she allowed herself the freedom to experience what she wanted to do. When Jalene got back, she had left a secure job, and now has started her own business to follow her heart's dreams. At the end of her speech, Jalene had all of us put our hand on our heart and ask what it wants to do. She was evaluated by Brian N, who said she had great pictures on her slides for us to look at. He also said that she got the audience engaged with her having us all ask our hearts what it wanted to do, which helped to gain the audience attention again.
Lauralee was the second speaker of the day, giving the Touching Story speech from storytelling. Her speech was titled 8:07 AM. June 10th is a day she will always remember. It is the day that an active shooter came into Reynolds High School and shot another student, a teacher and them killed himself. She talked about what it was like to be in the classroom, not knowing where the shooter was. As she waited and waited to go home, she reflected on how life can change at any moment. "Time is a fascinating thing," she said. "We seem to assume that we can predict the future. Not plan, but predict. Planning for the future means you work towards a goal, and trying to do what you can do in order to secure that goal. Predicting the future means saying this is going to happen regardless, and assuming you know the future. If there is one thing I have learned, is predicting the future is truly futile."
Laurie was Lauralee's evaluator for the day, who said that she clearly was able to capture the emotion of her topic. One thing that she mentioned Lauralee could do is expand her gestures so they were larger.
Christa was the table topics master of the day. She asked Cody who he hated, to which he said that he tries not to hate anyone. However the person he used to hate was himself. Christa asked Laurie what is somewhere she hates to go. During summer, Laurie said, she hates to go into the traffic and busy streets of Newport. Paul said that the world is going to look incrementally different in 100 years because, as a people, we improve in small increments. Laurie won the table topics trophy of the day.
Cody was the timer of the day. Paul was the grammarian of the day.

May 8th Meeting

The Toastmaster of the day was Avital, whose theme was travel. She talked about how when she was in India, she was texting voice to text, and when she paused, the cell phone picked up one word from the audience was love. Jalene was the general evaluator of the day. She said that she liked how Lee gave an overview of the speech and how he gave some things that were general and then specific things that Lauralee could do.
Lauralee was the first speaker of the day, giving her speech "Survival of the Middle Ages". As the "representative" of a "company" called "Living History Inc." Lauralee talked about how they were a time travel agency that brings dreams to live. Offering a one night, weekend, week and month stay in the middle ages, Lauralee talked about how Living History Inc. She talked about how there are several options available to help your stay in the middle ages become the most comfortable, from Middle Ages Meals Ready to Eat, to powdered toothpaste and simple clothes. At the end she wished us all a wonderful stay at Living History Inc, and reminded us to pick up our "Survival of the Middle Ages for Time Travelling American's" guide. Lee was her evaluator, who thought this was a very humorous speech that fit the criteria of unexpected. One thing that he did suggest was to work with more varied gestures and remember to keep eye contact with her audience.
The second speaker of the day was Kristina, who redid her square dancing speech from last week in full costume. She started her speech off with a call, and explained how some call are sung and some are spoken, but either way they give the dancers instructions on how to perform the next move. Thought most dances make us think back to PE and how we were forced to dance with kids who had "kooties", square dancing is a fun and healthy way to spend your time. Kristina shared that she began dancing at a very young age, even competing at several levels of competition, from regional to national. Her family was highly involved in it, and they would take her to square dances all the time. At the end of her speech, Kristina talked about how beneficial dancing was, and told us that we could go to a square dance in Corvallis, Oregon. http://corvallissquares.com/
Christa was Kristina's evaluator, who said this was probably her first time evaluating a person on the same speech twice. She said that Christa loved Kristina's costume that she came in, and how she was able to use it in her speech. While Kristina did not get rid of her notes, Christa said she did a great job not using them at the beginning of her speech. One thing she did suggest is to practice using gestures while she practice her speech so she knows what to do with her hands.
The theme of table topics was gastric adventures. Dave asked Brian H how he would prepare spiders. Brian said curried spiders are delicious and the key to a good spider is to cook them on low heat. Laimons was asked what the worst thing he ate was, and he said in school he was served Kidney, where he was forced to eat everything on his plate. Innards, according to Laimons, was the worst thing to be fed. Jalene said she had to opportunity to eat guinea pig and ants in South America, but turned down both opportunities. Brian H was the winner of the table topics trophy.
John was the timer of the day, and Diane was the grammarian, whose word was adventure.

May 1st Meeting

Brian H was the Toastmaster of the day, whose theme was Cinco de Mayo. He talked about how this is more of an American holiday than a Mexican one. The general evaluator was Lauralee, who said Brian did a good job transitioning between speakers and into table topics. One thing that she did suggest is to make sure all of the business for the day is delivered at the beginning of the meeting.
Kristina was the first speaker of the day, who gave a speech on square dancing. She started her speech off with a call, and how she began dancing at a very young age. Her family was highly involved in it, and they would take her to square dances all the time. At the end of her speech, Kristina talked about how beneficial dancing was, and told us that we could go to a square dance in Corvallis, Oregon.
http://corvallissquares.com/
Christa was Kristina's evaluator for her research speech in Pathways. She loved how Kristina was able to bring the fun into square dancing for her. She really like the invitation at the end and how it is motivating with all of the benefits that Kristina mentioned.
Dave was our second speaker of the day, who did a practice run through of his speech Half the Man I Used to Be that he will give on Saturday. To start his speech, Dave told us that he had got rid of a person, and he is glad he did. Dave started at the beginning with being diagnosed with depression after Vietnam. Later he was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. To make himself feel better, he would eat, but it progressively took more and more food to give him comfort. The doctor said he would need to lose 200 pounds before he could safely do the hip replacement and recovery. By 450 pounds, Dave had a heart attack and had a lot of time to think about what he had been doing with his life. He realized that he was trying to commit suicide by knife and fork. Once he had lost 30 pounds, the weight loss surgeon agreed to do the procedure, and with the help of a dietitian, Dave was on his way to getting his hip replaced. Today, Dave is half the man he used to be and is able to shed his past as he symbolically steps out of the clothes that he wore at 450 pounds, to emerge a new Dave.

Brian H suggested that Dave make sure to take at stance at the beginning of his speech so that he would not rock, but thought the content of his speech was very good. Jalene suggested that Dave emphasize the transitions of his speech to help them stand out, from energized to storytelling, and motivational. Svetlana said to make sure that Dave use his props for everyone to see since they help to tell his point so vividly. 

Brian H was the table topics master of the day. He asked Christa to talk about the Franco-Mexican war, who said that her father was a major history buff. He had taken Christa to a lot of war sights since they lived on the East coast. He asked Lee how he would be celebrate Cinco de Mayo day, to which he said that that he would be going to the Loyalty Day parade since it falls on Cinco de Mayo this year. Lauralee was the last person who was asked about how in high school her teacher had us tell the preschoolers about Cinco de Mayo. Christa was the winner of table topics. 

April 24th meeting

The Toastmaster of the day was Brian, who talked about the 4H program, as this week the 4H kids practiced their speeches. Because of time constraints and technical issues, there was no general evaluation for the day.
The first speaker, Kt spoke about Soul Surfer, which is a movie and a book that came out in 2011. She talked about how Bethany loved to surf, and even was sponsored to surf before the shark attack in 2003. Her arm was severed by a tiger shark, and she lost over 60% of her blood by the time that she got to the hospital. One month after the attack, Bethany got back in the water and today she is back to surfing and even competing. Dave was Kt's evaluator, who said that she had a great speech that was really well organized. He said that she did a great job telling the story, and giving us the emotion in the story. One thing he did suggest was to project to the back of the room so that everyone can for sure hear.
The second speaker of the day was L, who talked to us about bullying. She said that her speech is dedicated in the memory of her 13 year old cousin who died by suicide after being a victim of bullying. There are several types of bullying, she said, from cyber bullying to verbal and physical bullying. According to stopbullying.gov, bullying is both requires an imbalance of power and repetition. She talked about how if you are being cyber bullied, you need to report them to the website administration, and block the people. If there is still bullying happening, delete your account. For those on the sidelines, stand up to the bully and look for those who could be vulnerable. Laurie was L's evaluator, who said she did a great job conveying her message, and bringing people into her story. Laurie said she did a great job with the technical glitches, and had good eye contact.
Our third speaker was B, who talked about her guinea pigs. She had a poster with a picture of her guinea pig on it to show people who she was talking about. The first thing she did was explain how she cares for them, by feeding them hay and water. B said she likes to watch her guinea pigs sleep and walk around. Everyone complimented her on being brave and speaking in front of us.
For our second to last speaker, Ka, her speech was called Trauma Bonds. She started her speech by telling a story of two sisters who grew up in an abusive and drug filled home. The older sister would steal food for herself and her sister to keep them alive. The two sisters then were bonded through this trauma. At the end of her speech she quoted psalms 71: 14 "But as for me, I will hope continually, And will praise You yet more and more."
Dave was our last speaker of the day, who did a practice run through of his speech Half the Man I Used to Be. To start his speech he told us that he had got rid of a person and he is glad he did.  Telling about his transformation, Dave started at the beginning with being diagnosed with depression after Vietnam. Later he was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. To make himself feel better, he would eat, but it progressively took more and more food to give him comfort. After gaining weight, and becoming over 400 pounds, he realized he needed to do something about his painful hip. The doctor said he would need to lose 200 pounds before he could safely do the operation and recovery. By 450 pounds, Dave had a heart attack and had a lot of time to think about what he had been doing with his life, to realize that he was trying to commit suicide by knife and fork. Once he had lost 30 pounds, the weight loss surgeon agreed to do the procedure, and with the help of a dietitian, Dave was on his way to getting his hip replaced. Today, Dave is half the man he used to be and is able to shed his past as he symbolically steps out of the clothes that he wore at 450 pounds, to emerge a new Dave.
With a round robin evaluation, one of our guests, Estelle, said that she was very inspired by his speech, and how he was able to go through that journey. Kt said that she really enjoyed the joke at the beginning of the speech, and L said that she liked how he was engaging with the audience. Another guest, Liz, said it was shocking to see him take off the clothes he wore.

April 17th, 2018 Meeting

The Toastmaster of the day was Diane, whose theme was tax day. She gave us interesting facts about taxes, such as how Disney made a movie about income taxes to help explain what they were to Americans called the New Spirit which was made in 1942. Laurie was the general evaluator of the day, who reminded our speech evaluators to balance their feedback with both positive and constructive comments.
The first speaker of the day was Jalene, who gave her ice breaker. She first talked about how she went on a trip to Mexico with her brother. During her time of the beach, she felt she had reached a turning point where she had to acknowledge the fact that she was unhappy with her life. Her second turning point was when she moved to Oregon with her new husband, and began her masters degree. The last turning point that she came across is when she took a two year trip from Oregon to Argentina and back on her motorcycle. This last turning point gave her the courage to go after her dream of owning a business, and she has now started Jalene Case Coaching. She was evaluated by Brian H, who first told her what an amazing job she did at giving her presentation. Brian said she had great organization and was able to explain what she was talking about easily. One of his suggestions was to make sure she is projecting for the whole room to hear.
The second speaker of the day was Julia, who gave her research speech on social security. She said there are many different things that can contribute to our decision about when to take social security, such as spousal benefits, medical and monetary concerns, and life expectancy. As an example, she said that Jalene has a social security benefit of 1,000. If she waited until 70, her social security will increase to around 1,300. One of her facts was that a man who is 65 years old today is expected to live until 84.3 years old, and a woman lives until 86.6 years old. With all of this taken in consideration, making the decision on when to take your social security and a financial advisor can help. Svetlana was Julia's evaluator, who said that she did a good job making eye contact with the audience. She also liked how Julia used so many facts in her speech. One suggestion Svetlana had for Julia is to look back at her speech before and compare it to today's speech.
https://www.ssa.gov/ 
Lee was the table topics master of the day, whose theme was also taxes. He asked Svetlana how taxes work in London. She said that she is self employed so taxes work a little differently for her than for others, but their department that handles taxes is called Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. Brian H was asked if he would like to be able to choose where his taxes went. He said that if people could choose where their taxes went, it would be a mess. He would put some of his taxes towards defense, and a lot more towards social programs such as medicare and public schools. Brian H was the winner of the table topics trophy.
Lauralee was the grammarian of the day, whose word was prognosis. Dave was the timer of the day.

Spring has Sprung

Brian H was the Toastmaster of the day, whose theme was spring fever. He lamented though that spring has come and gone, with yesterday's 67 degree and sunny weather. As he was giving facts, Brian talked about how he was seeing evidence of spring as some of the plants that he and his wife had bought last year were finally showing signs of life. Brian H was evaluated by Brian N, who said he did a great job on introducing the players of the meeting. One suggestion he had for Brian is to make sure to hand off the lectern, and not leave it empty.
The first speaker of the day, Julia, talked about social security for her research speech in presentation masteries. She said there are many different things that can contribute to our decision about when to take social security, such as spousal benefits, medical and monetary concerns, and life expectancy. As an example, she said that Brian has a social security benefit of 1,000. If he waited until 70, his social security will increase to around 1,300. A man who is 65 years old today is expected to live until 84.3 years old, and a woman lives until 86.6 years old. With all of this taken in consideration, there are a lot of factors to consider when deciding on social security, and a financial advisor can help. Svetlana was Julia's evaluator, who said that she did a good job engaging the audience, especially by bringing a member into the speech. She also liked how Julia turned he lectern so that she could include the entire audience. One suggestion that was given is that she use less notes so that she doesn't say as many umms.
https://www.ssa.gov/ 
Christa was the second speaker of the day, who gave her speech "Making them laugh" from the entertaining manual. Her speech was tales from the sea, a female perspective. Coming in full gear, she talked about how she could be the only female on the ship, and how crew members she had never even talked to could mistake her everyday behavior as flirting. One man said that she had been flirting with him by how she was handling the fish. Christa then demonstrated how she had been flinging the fish, then showed us "what he saw". Dramatically, Christa flings off her hat, shakes out her hair and flirtatiously winks as she grabs an invisible fish, kissing the air. Lauralee was her evaluator, who said this would be a great competition speech. Obviously, Christa's stories of getting slapped by a halibut and how sexy a life vest and jumpsuit are were funny. One suggestion that Lauralee had for Christa was to watch her pacing as she checks in on her notes.
Lakota was the table topics master of the day. He asked Lauralee how she experiences wanderlust. She talked about going down the coast and taking pictures of what would not be considered beautiful to others, but is to her, like a mossy tree, a stormy beach and an up close of a spider. Dave was asked what he loves about spring. He said he loves the flowers on the coast, and how scotchbroom starts to bloom even though it is a menace for it's pollen. Brian was asked what makes his heart beat faster, to which he joked riding bikes and walking on a treadmill does. In all honesty, Brian said that his wife, Donna, even though they have almost been married 35 years, she still makes his heart flutter. Brian was the table topics winner of the day.
Dave was the grammarian of the day, whose word of the day was whatchamacallit. Kristina was the timer of the day.

Mary Poppins themed meeting

March 27th Meeting

Lee was the Toastmaster of the day Tuesday, March 28th. His theme of the day was April Fools, and he played a trick on us with "dog treats" which were really sugar cookies. His evaluator was Lauralee, who said he did a great job adjusting to the time restraints. One suggestion she did have is to make sure he consistently leads the applause.
Svetlana was the first speaker of the day, giving her speech for Innovative Planning, where she had to adapt to the reactions of her audience. She talked about her experience as a guide in Uzbekistan, something she had not done for a long time, and was excited to be able to do it again. As an interpreter, she had lead tours for a long time, but with a job change, it was something Svetlana had not been able to do for awhile. She talked about how they went all different places on foot for their tour, and got to go shopping for souvenirs. One of the tourist asked whether they should buy certain items and Svetlana said that she should buy whatever she wants because she will not have this type of experience again.   Laimons was her evaluator who complimented Svetlana on her gestures as she was on camera. Since there were some issues with the lights, it was suggested that the online members have a timer they use on their end as a back up.
Avital gave a better speaker series speech about being nervous before giving a speech. She talked about how she has been nervous about a lot of the things that could happen before a speech, such as falling and being late. After giving speeches for several years, she has learned that your audience does not notice mistakes nearly as much as you do. To get rid of anxiety, she suggested practicing your speech at your Toastmasters club and in front of a mirror so that you can feel more comfortable giving your speech. Lakota was her evaluator who said she did a great job adding personality to the speech since it was written for her. One thing that he said could improve is that he really could not see her on his screen. As an online member, he watched her speech from his computer, and  since she was sharing her screen, her picture was very small making it hard to see her expression and gestures.
Since we had two long speeches, we did not do table topics, and there was no table topics winner.
A reminder was given to pay dues since membership ends March 31st if you have not renewed. 

 https://zoom.us/j/503657370
The link to attend our meeting via Zoom is attached above.
See you Tuesday!

Spring is Here

The Princesses were here!

Meet our princesses Georgia, Jennifer, Aramina and Dina! They gave their first speech today for us.
The theme for this year is united with our heroes.
Dina's hero was her mom for how she has always worked to provide for her family, and inspires her to do her best. She plans to attend Corban University as a pre-med student and become an ophthalmologist. Kristina was Dina's evaluator, and she talked about how she could feel how her mother has impacted Dina's life, and encouraged her to tell the story of her mom to the audience.

Aramina talked about how she believes that teachers are overlooked heroes, as they cheer on their students. She is planning to attend Linn-Benton Community College, then Western Oregon University in pursuit of a teaching degree. Lee was Aramina's evaluator who complimented how she was able to tell her story with a good flow to her speech. He suggested that after some practice that Aramina could cut back on her notes so that we could see her beautiful smile more. Svetlana also evaluated Aramina, who said she had wonderful posture.
Jennifer talked about how she had a cousin who joined the Marines and when she heard he was coming home designed a welcome home poster as a way to show that her family was united with their hero. Her goal is to go to a university to study political science, serve in the Peace Corp, and then attend law school. Avital was Jennifer's evaluator, who said that she was so brave for coming up to speak with a smile and waving at the camera. One suggestion Avital gave Jennifer is to take a breath and look at the audience even if she isn't saying anything to engage them in her speech.
Our final speaker was Georgia who said there are many heroes in our community, from volunteers to nurses and our police. Georgia looks forward to attending Oregon Coast Community College and later transferring to Oregon State University to pursue a degree in marketing. Lauralee was her evaluator, who told her that she was in IB classes, goes to OCCC and OSU right now, and is working in marketing for her job. One of the things that Lauralee noticed is that had a lot of good examples of who were heroes and recognized those who are normally forgotten about. She said that Georgia had a great ending by saying that the world would stop turning if there weren't the volunteers who make so much happen. A suggestion that Lauralee had was to practice her speech in the mirror so she could see her gestures and facial expressions. 
Kristina gave a table topic questions for the Princesses to answer. She was wondering which superpower that each of the girls would want if they could choose out of any power. Georgia's superpower is to be invisible. Jennifer's superpower was teleportation so that she can go to places like Disneyland. Aramina decided that if she had a superpower, it would be shapeshifting so she could experience being animals, being able to fly and different perspectives. Dina wanted her superpower to be healing.

February 20th Meeting

Our International Speech contest club level was this Tuesday. Brian was the chairman of the contest, and gave us information about what happens at a contest. Everyone received a judging sheet with the criteria for the speeches. Each person was to fill out their sheet and hand the bottom piece into the ballot counters. He also handed out the evaluation contest sheet, where everyone was to judge the evaluators on their content.
Our contest speaker was Dave, who gave his speech half the man I used to be. He came in wearing the clothes he used to wear at 450 pounds, and said there is a person here missing today. He was quite glad this person is gone and assured us he would never be found again, because Dave got rid of him. Dave then announced that he is now below half the weight he used to be. Seven years ago, Dave decided that his hip was hurting so much that he was going to have to do something about it. After meeting with a doctor, he was told he needed to loose over 100 pounds before they could do surgery on his hip safely. While Dave tried to loose weight, he was not close to his goal by the end of the first year. Meeting the doctor again, he was referred to a weight loss clinic where they required him to loose more weight to prove that he would continue on his journey of weight loss if he got the gastric bypass. At the end of his speech he said that today he was shedding his old clothes, and life a butterfly bursting from it cocoon, Dave has been transformed into a new person.

Tom was our test speaker for our evaluators Dave and Avital, as shown in the video above. To end the meeting, everyone practiced filling out their judging slips, and how people were scored. 

February 13th Meeting Review

Ruth was the Toastmaster of the day, whose theme was what we love to hate. She ran the meeting from online, having the speech evaluators present the objectives of the speeches before they were given. She also had the general evaluator lead the evaluation part of the meeting. The general evaluator was Avital, who gave her perspective of the meeting from online. Avital congratulated the club on getting much better wifi, where all of the online members could have their video on with no problems at the meeting. She suggested that the grammarian present the word of the day from the front at the beginning of the meeting so everyone can use it throughout the meeting.
The first speaker of the day was Linda, who gave her first ice breaker through Pathways. She talked about her book that she wrote about love, forgiveness and compassion. On Linda's journey, she learned that it was not about what the other person did to you, as all humans have faults, but that you have the power to choose, of your own free will, to forgive and show compassion. This is the power that all humans have, that will help them exercise the love that is within them, and show compassion to others. Her evaluator was Brian N, who said that her ice breaker was very effective in giving us an idea of who she is. While there were things to improve on, he said she did a great job of communicating her ideas to the group. One suggestion he had for Linda is that she could lay out her speech on a piece of paper with bullet points so that it is easier to read without having to pick them up.
Our second speaker of the day was Kristina, who gave her ice breaker for the path Visionary Communications. In her speech, Kristina walked us through how she did not like school when she was growing up, with the tests, assignments and writing. However, she found a class that brought more experiential learning into the classroom. They would run across poles thirty feet up with another student as a spotter. As a college student, she studied experiential learning, and has now travelled the world to teach businesses to work as a team. Brian H was Kristina's evaluator for her ice breaker. He said that she did very well presenting herself, and not showing any nerves that she could have had. One suggestion that he had for her was to share a little more of her life outside work, so that we could get to know more of who she is. 
Dave was the Table Topics Master of the day, whose theme was a whopper. Jalene told us about how she was riding her motorcycle with her husband, and as they were travelling, they arrived at their destination on New Years Eve. The town they were in was mostly closed down for the holiday, and they decided to go to a restaurant for dinner at one of the only restaurants open. Tom was the second speaker who told us the recipe for how to make a Burger King whopper. Jalene was the winner of table topics.
Lauralee was the grammarian of the day, whose word was Cherish. Svetlana was the timer of the day.