By Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County Times
Landon Newell wants to be a music educator someday. Though trumpet is his primary instrument in the school band, he’s also played French horn, and he plays guitar and bass at church. He’s also procured a saxophone from a family friend and started practicing it.
In addition to performing with his high school band he’s been in front of people while playing at church, in school talent shows, and with district and regional orchestras. He said in some ways that helped get him ready for the hardest part of oratorical contests for many folks – public speaking.
“I can get up front and play an instrument or anything and be perfectly okay,” the East Carter sophomore said. “It’s just because I’ve done it for so long, you get pretty used to it.”
He leaned on that experience to keep his nerves in check as he worked his way toward the $2,100 in scholarship funds he earned from the American Legion’s annual U.S. Constitution Oratorical Contest.
“I’d always think of that (performance experience),” he continued. “It reminded me of my first sixth grade concert. I was thinking, ‘Oh, my goodness! Oh, my goodness!’ But if I make one mistake in a speech, nobody’s really watching your script. As long as you go through, as long as you don’t stutter and just go through, and get your main points across, then you’re pretty much there.”
But while Newell might have downplayed his writing, it wasn’t just his delivery that allowed the youth to advance to the state level of competition, where he took third place.
His speech addressed a historical period of change, and challenge for the Constitution, that in some ways mirrors the contentious political environment we find ourselves facing today.
“I wrote about Reconstruction Era amendments, and I tried to talk about a little bit of the history,” he explained. He said the parallels he addressed were entirely by design. “They (The American Legion) want you to get into a little bit of the civil responsibilities, like what we need to get from this today.”
Newell said what he tried to get at was that there were things to learn from all sides of an argument, and both sides of history. Especially, he said, “I was trying to get the point across that history’s destined to repeat itself if we don’t learn from it.”
He said he also touched on the need for reconciliation across even the most bitter of divides.
It was a rewarding experience for him in other ways too, he said. He’s always had an interest in history, he said, sparked by curiosity over a Kennedy 50 cent piece when he was in the second grade. That grew into an interest in music history as well. And of civics.
“You can understand a lot more of today (by understanding) how history was back a long ago,” he said. “Especially what I’ve been studying here recently.”
He has also recently served as a House page for Representative Patrick Flannery, getting a better understanding of how state government works as well.
It’s all been interesting. He said learning Robert’s Rules of order and observing their use with Flannery’s office was helpful for his planned participation in the coming year in FFA Parliamentary Procedure competition as well. But despite all this civics related work, Newell has no interest in varying from his planned music education path.
He plans to use the scholarship money he’s earned for some private lessons and summer band camps that he hopes will better prepare him for his planned career path.
He said he was grateful to his family for their support, and to his friend’s family for introducing him to the American Legion contest, as well as to all of the members of the Willard American Legion Post 342 and their families as well.
Contact the writer at editor@cartercountytimes.com