In the Picture above Pictured are Sean Hansen, 3rd place; Allee Rose Booten, 1st place'; Logan Hamma, 2nd place and Dennis McGregor Scholarship Chairman, Optimist Clube West Burlington - Burlington.
The Hawk Eye
BURLINGTON —Allee Rose Booten was challenged through the Optimist Club of Burlington–West Burlington to create a speech that would depict the definition of “community.”
The Optimist International theme for the 2025-2026 year was “The Moment I Realized I Belonged – My Definition of Community.”
This theme which challenges contestants to reach deep into their community experiences to determine when they realized they were a part of a Community and to define the experience which brought them to that definition.
Booten did exactly that with an analogy using the links of a child’s paper chain to describe how each link represents her experiences or events in her life which formed and built on to her definition of community.
She was required to develop a speech which would be timed between four minutes to five minutes using the aforementioned topic to be judged by three independent judges.
She competed with 10 other students to win the first-place award which was a gold medallion and a $500 scholarship to her post graduate college or university of choice. Booten is a freshman at Burlington Notre Dame so there is plenty of time for her decision.
Speaking on the same topic and winning second place was Logan Hamma of Burlington Notre Dame and third place was Sean Hansen also of Burlington Notre Dame.
Allee Rose Booten advanced to the Eastern Regional Competition held on April 4, 2026 in Lisbon, Iowa. She was able to win second place at this level of competition against other students from Cedar Rapids and Maquoketa.