Colin Gallagher of Homewood has found a niche in public speaking.
As a member of the Prairie State College (PSC) speech team, the sophomore has placed at four recent competitions and is hoping to represent PSC in national competition.
This school year, Gallagher took second place in informative speaking at Elgin Community College; sixth place for informative speaking at the Frank-ly Speaking Speech Tournament at the College of DuPage; fifth place for persuasive speaking at the Novice Sweepstakes at Moraine Valley Community College; and sixth place in persuasive speaking at the College of Lake County.
Gallagher got his first chance at public speech as a student at Homewood-Flossmoor High School. His persuasive speaking class professor at PSC encouraged him to join
the speech team and with each competition Gallagher says, “I’m just having a blast!”
His persuasive topic is security breaches: how you are affected by hackers who steal your identity or important information. He cites as examples the recent Target and
Home Depot credit/debit breaches. The general public doesn’t realize how important precautions are, or what businesses are doing to prevent the poaching.
Of all the areas of speech competition, Gallagher said informative is his favorite. He presents on spider silk. He tries to make his presentation “interesting and eye opening” taking listeners through the biology of spider silk to its current uses in body armor and medicine.
Gallagher, son of Greg and Diane Gallagher of Homewood, will receive his associate’s degree from Prairie State in May. He plans to pursue a bachelor’s degree in communications.
