The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-05-14
SOUTHERN CHAMP TO BE SELECTED ON NEXT FRIDAY
Age-Herald's Oratorical Contest Brings Speak
 CTS From ' States
SHAPING PROGRAM
 FOR DELEGATIONS
Noted Educators Among Visitors To Birming-
 ham For Event

Champion high school orators from six states will begin arriving in Birmingham Thursday for the all-southern finals in The Age Herald's national oratorical contest.
 They will meet in the auditorium of the First Baptist church at 8 o'clock Friday evening for the Dixie championship. The winner will represent this section in the national finals, to be held in Wash ington on June 6 before President Coolidge.
 The contestants will come from Georgia, Florida. North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Alabamass representative will be Jack Turner of Phillips High school, Birmingham.
 Scores of "rooters" from their home states will accompany the state champions, and the semi-finals will draw to this city a notable gathering of educational leaders from all parts of the south.
 A varied program of entertain ment awaits the crack orators and their supporting delegations. They will be met at the train by delega- tions of civic and educational lead CTS and escorted to their rooms in the Motion hotel.
 Downtown Parade
 Friday afternoon they will be the central figures in spectacular down town parade, in which each state will have a large float. High officials and noted educators from seTeraI st fea ] will be in the procession. 3s1
 The Pathe News will send camera men here to phOtograpl the contest. ants, the parade and all other activi- ties preliminary to the all-southerfl contest A few days later these pic lures will be shown in leading motion picture theatres throughout the United States. Semi-finals also will be held Friday evening in Kansas City, Chicago, Phila- delphia and Los Angeles. Another sectional contest was held in New York last week. The six sectional cham pions, at the national finals in Wash ington in June, will compete for the $6 GOO in prizes to be awarded by The Age Herald and the other newspapers sponsoring the contest.
 Thomas Craig Moore, North Caro- lina's champion, telegraphed Tuesday that he would reach Birmingham Thursday at noon. He is a student in Central High school, Charlotte.
 Rooters Coming
 The Tennessee champion. Thomas Goodrich, of Fayetteville, will arrive lat 2 o'clock Thursday afternoon. Scores of his supporters will accompany him.
 OthO J. Sharpe, contest manager, said complete list of the contestants would be ready for publication Wednes- day or Thursday.
 All the oratiOns, under rules of the contest, must be based on the United States Constitution. The prime pur- pose of the contest is to increase inter- est in and respect for that great docu- ment.
 Educators in all parts of the south have written The Age-Herald, express ing appreciation of its interest in edu- cational and patriotic progress and as- Serting that the contest is ting unusual interest everywhere.
 Age-Herald Thanked
 Superintendents of education in many Alabama cities have thanked The Age Herald for making the contest possi- ble.
 W. W. Benson. superintendent of the Decatur public schools, wrote "The contest has been a remarkable success. In our state finals, it produced the finest declamations I have heard in years. All the distressing things of this day were for time forgotten and we had the feryid oratory of the olden times. By all means, keep up your good work. l congratulate The Age Herald on it's splendid effort to raise the standard of citizenship by well organized study of the Constitution. '