[Savage]

I just learned that a friend and member of my local Toastmasters club, Bryant Pergerson, won the Regional II speech contest this weekend and will be competing in the upcoming International contest in Phoenix this summer, making him one of 10 finalists for 2007 World Champion of Public Speaking. I'm very excited for him, and our club will surely be celebrating this at our next meeting. He really deserves it too -- he worked incredibly hard on his speech. His winning speech was about volunteering and giving.

Technically he won't be representing our club at International -- he opted not to compete in our club contest after he'd already won in his other club. But that doesn't matter much to our members. He was recently elected as our next club President and has done an incredible job as Educational VP. I'll definitely be cheering him on.