2025 Oratorical Contest

On Saturday, Dec. 20, Post 1758 candidate Callie Castilla of John Jay H.S. competed in the Dutchess County – level Oratorical Competition held at Post 37 in Poughkeepsie. Thanks to Bill Meyer, John Polasko, and Danny Oberhauser for staffing the event and Caroline Pogge for coordinating Callie’s continued participation.

As with the post-level competition, Callie was the sole competitor (and thus, the overall winner) and has advanced onto the District-level competition to be held Sunday, January 11, 2026 in Beacon. Callie gave a 9 minutes and 55 seconds speech on the 1st Amendment that drew on the Creation story and incorporated remarks made by Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. She showed great improvement from the post-level competition and demonstrated great poise when, at one point, she momentarily lost her place.

Callie’s participation (and advancement) underscores the strength of Post 1758 amid the other posts in Dutchess County. We continue to lead the way in recruitment of new members; children & youth programs; and community outreach. Heading into the new year, we couldn’t be more proud of our post.

Oratorical contest winner Callie Castilla was presented with a medal and a check by Commander Lance Ashworth at the November membership meeting for winning the Post's annual oratorical contest.Callie was accompanied by several family members.

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Dan Oberhauser and Caroline Pogge organized this year's oratorical contest which was held at the East Fishkill Library on Sat. Nov. 1. Callie Castilla, a junior at John Jay, prepared an essay focused on the First Amendment and was selected to represent the post at the Dutchess County contest in December.

Caroline and Dan were joined by other post members acting as judges, timekeepers, tabulators and escorts. They were (left to right) John Call, Jay Livermore, John Polasko, Don Burns, Jim Reynolds, Bob Schiaffino and Bill Kriebel.

On Wednesday Sept. 24, Commander Lance Ashworth, along with John Call, Bill Meyer and Dan Oberhauser, went to John Jay High School to recruit candidates for Post 1758's annual oratorical contest. Many students showed interest in participating, and about two dozen took information packets. Let's hope that this year we get enough participants to make it a real contest.