Bluffton University sophomore Emily Huxman, from Waterloo, Ontario, won the university’s annual C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical Contest on March 25.
In addition to earning a $175 cash prize, Huxman—who placed second last year—qualified for a binational contest with top finishers from other North American Mennonite colleges.
In her speech, “Reducing Global Violence against Women through Education,” Huxman argued for a peace church approach to providing education and reducing violence by strengthening networks of people who have yielded their lives to the reign of God.
She urged support of organizations like buildOn that are involved in building schools in developing countries, and advocated for sponsoring the education of young girls through organizations such as the Malala Fund and Compassion International. Through Compassion International, Huxman and a friend are sponsoring a Bolivian girl named Ana Lara, helping give her the opportunity to graduate from high school for $18 a month. Huxman plans to visit Ana Lara during her Bluffton cross-cultural experience in Bolivia this spring.
Taking second place in the contest and $125 was Chay Reigle, a senior from Bluffton, who discussed “peace journalism” in “The Fourth Estate of Peacemaking.” Third place, and $100, went to Venessa Owsley, a first-year student from Lima, Ohio, whose topic was “Making Bluffton a Safe Space.”
Students in the contest give a speech of no more than 10 minutes that applies the Christian peace position to an issue of contemporary concern. The contest is named in honor of C. Henry Smith, an early 20th-century Mennonite historian and a professor at Bluffton as well as at Goshen College
