LCHS Senior Delivers Prize Winning Speech

Using Bob Dylan's music as his intro, La Cañada High School senior Sam Whitefield convinced a roomful of lawyers to think about the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Whitefield, 18, compared Occupy Wall Street to Tiananmen Square, and argued that today's protests stem from a long tradition of public unrest, the Pasadena Star News reported. Whitefield won a speech scholarship contest sponsored by the Pasadena Bar Association, in celebration of national Law Day.

"Throughout history, protesters have used whatever it was they had available: the Internet, phones, newspapers, telegraphs, pamphlets, books or even - gasp - old-fashioned word-of-mouth," Whitefield said in the article.

Whitefield will receive $5,000 toward his international relations studies at Tufts University next  year, according to the article. The other finalist to speak Thursday, Jessica Demasi, will receive a $2,000 scholarship. The 16-year-old is a junior at Maranatha High School.