Bellaire students have made a huge success at the 25^th Texas Japanese Speech contest for Houston regional. There were many winners including Bernice Tsao, Eunice Valenzuela in the beginner’ poetry division and Tyler Smith in the advanced poetry division.

In addition to the accomplished poetry recitals, Ayala Paola also placed in the beginner free speech division.  Janice Abella, Robert Brown, Aileen Martinez, Nicholas Mendoza, Laura Newland, Christopher Olvera, Erika Vinette, and Afton Widdershins also did extremely well in the Skit division

Erika Vinette, an active member of the Japanese club and a competitor of this competition, expresses that she has learned valuable lessons from this experience.

“I have learned how to cooperate with people,” Vinette said. “I’ve also learned that hard work always pays off in the end.”

Furthermore, Laura Newland, another competitor of the Skit section, explains that Ms. Bolinger, the Japanese teacher, was an indispensable source of assistance.

“She [Ms. Bolinger] did a lot for us,” Newland said. “She changed lines of the script just so our Japanese could be fluent. We all appreciate her so much during her class.