Marian Magazine - Marian High School

Finding her true voiceA passion for speech and debate helpedsenior Ozy Aloziem discover and unleash herleadership skills. Ozy decided to participatein speech her freshman year, mostly becauseshe thought it would be a good way to meetpeople, but she quickly realized that it wasmuch more. She explained that she came toMarian a quiet, shy girl and the speech teamgave her the confidence to speak up, literally.After experimenting with a few differentcategories of competitive speech, the 17-yearolddecided to try poetry and immediatelyfound her niche. That journey was a pivotalpart of her Marian experience. “There are somany different categories of speech and onceI found where I belonged, my performancechanged dramatically,” she said.Since then, she has made it to districts herfreshman and sophomore year. This academicyear, she placed at several tournaments andcompeted at districts, where she placedsecond and qualified for state.Although, Ozy didn’t place at the statetournament, the Marian Speech Team tookstate for the first time, which was just asmuch a victory for her. “I learned the idea ofwhat it means to be on a team with everyoneworking toward the same goal,” she said.Perhaps the greatest leadership skill shelearned from the speech team was beinghumble enough to ask for and receive peerfeedback.Ozy said the speech team coach and Englishteacher, Jennifer Feregrino Christen ‘96, neverallowed her to quit. “She pushed me,” shesaid. “She was the driving force for me.”“For me, what I take out of myexperience is knowing who I am as aperson. I went from a quiet, shy girl tosomeone who isn’t afraid to speak upand share my opinion.”Ozy Aloziem ‘11But she wasn’t the only one who influencedOzy’s leadership development. Ozy saidthat her fellow students have played an evenbigger role. “Most of the student clubs are ledby students and I think that is mostly how Ihave learned,” she said. She described it as acycle of leadership, one student passing skillson to another student who, then, in time,does the same.Recently, Ozy used her leadership skills tohelp organize the first Poetry Slam at Marian.As a member of the IDEAS (IncreasingDiversity and Equality Among Students)Team, she was responsible for coordinatingand planning the event that featured eightperformers, five of whom were Marianstudents.As Ozy prepares for graduation, she saidthat she is leaving Marian with a true senseof who she is. “For me, what I take out of myexperience is knowing who I am as a person,”she said. I went from a quiet, shy girl, tosomeone who isn’t afraid to speak up andshare my opinion, she said.A family tradition becomesan opportunity to leadFor Kara Stockdale ’05 the chance toshowcase her Marian leadership skills camewhen she was a student. In the fall of herjunior year, she was cut from the volleyballteam. Instead of letting the disappointmentdiscourage her, she decided to seek out otherways to get involved at Marian.Growing up, Kara always enjoyedtrapshooting with her family. Her brother,David, was on a team at Creighton Prep thather father, Bill, helped coach. It was herfather who encouraged her to start a MarianTrapshooting Team.She turned to Bruce Esser, director ofinformation technology and science teacher,for help starting the team. He agreed to bethe moderator if she could gain the head ofschool’s approval and get at least five girlstogether to form a squad. Kara did just that.Although she didn’t realize it at the time,her leadership skills had kicked in and werefueling the entire process.With the efforts of many individuals, Marianhad its first ever Hunters’ Safety Trainingthat fall and enough students were certifiedto form several squads. “It was definitelyworth the effort,” Kara said. “Not only didwe wind up having a competitive team, butwe developed great relationships with eachother, our coaches and the Prep trapshootingteam.”16