Bluffton University will hold its annual C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical Contest at 7 p.m. on April 5 in Yoder Recital Hall. 
 
Students selected to participate will prepare an oration (no more than ten-minutes in length) that applies a peace church perspective to an issue of contemporary concern. The student who is awarded first prize will receive $175. The second and third prize speakers will receive $125 and $100, respectively.
 
The first prize winner will advance to compete with winning students from other North American Mennonite colleges. The bi-national competition awards $250 for first place, $150 for second place and $75 for third place.
 
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.
 
Bluffton University student Emily Huxman, from Waterloo, Ontario, won last year’s bi-national C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical Contest.