“It was quite a trip!”
That’s about all Ryan McInerney could say after returning home Sunday from “Le concours/festival d’art oratoire” at Glendon College of York University in Toronto.
McInerney, a student in the Sturgeon Creek Alternative Program, and Katie-Lynn Bondett, a St. Francis student, went to the annual event celebrating French-Canadian culture after placing as the top Core French and French Immersion speakers respectively at the annual district French speech competition April 11 in Emo.
Given McInerney, a Rainy River resident, thought nothing of entering the speech contest, and didn’t expect to win, it was a big surprise to find out he was going to Toronto, courtesy of the local Canadian Parents for French.
“[My parents and I] didn’t even know about the trip,” he related.
Bondett was equally thrilled about the trip, saying, “It was cool.”
The festival, which lasted for about half of Saturday, included breakfast, a tour of Glendon College, entertainment (such as a Canadian championship fiddler and tap dancer), and the provincial finals of the secondary school French speech competition.
But McInerney and Bondett didn’t exactly have to compete.
“We were split into groups and we adjudicated each other [on our winning speeches],” explained Bondett.
“It was different than the earlier competition because it wasn’t about what Canadian Parents for French thought was good–it was what other people thought,” she added.
“I think it was to prepare us for the kind of competition we might see in the future,” said McInerney.
And after the festival, both youths spent the day sightseeing. “My grandparents came down and we went shopping. You know they have a lot of malls there,” said Bondett.
Bondett left Toronto on Sunday morning to return to Fort Frances while McInerney departed that afternoon.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
