Laura Smit Emerald
Rarhel Bonin, competing in poetry, original essay and photography for the Afro-Acade
mic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics, listens to her mentor, Bill Sweet.
ACT-SO program
educates youth
■ With 25 areas of interest,
ACT-SO was designed
to further the academic
talents of black students
By Lindsay Buchele
Oregon Daily Emerald
When University freshman Ray
na Luvert speaks, she commands
attention.
When asked what an oratory
competition requires, she respond
ed quickly with subtle hand ges
tures, solid eye contact and a de
liberate, engaging tone of voice.
“We have to develop our own
speeches and base them around a
topic that will be powerful enough
to draw in the audience and the
judges,” she said. “Engaging the
judges and getting a response out
of them is the most important part
of the competition.’’Luvert devel
oped her oratory skills while in
high school by competing in the
Afro-Academic, Cultural, Techno
logical and Scientific Olympics, a
program designed to draw out the
academic talents of black high
school students. ACT-SO held a
progress meeting Saturday at
Adams Elementary School.
Luvert participated in the ACT
SO program during all four years
of her high school career. Her par
ents, Henry and Abrella Luvert,
were head of the Eugene branch of
the program, which is sponsored
and run by the NAACP. Her
speech on the necessity of Black
History Month took her all the way
to the ACT-SO National Competi
tion.
“This program takes someone
who has potential and builds that
potential up,” Luvert said. “Black
students have the opportunity to
excel in a category they love.”
The ACT-SO program includes
25 categories of competition in the
sciences, humanities, performing
and visual arts and business. Some
of the activities include architec
ture, drawing, painting, oration,
original essay, entrepeneurship,
musical composition and biology.
The Eugene chapter has en
rolled 35 Lane County students in
the competitive program this year.
The program organizers are all vol
unteers.
Students in the program aim to
place high enough in the local
competition to make it to the na
tional one, which was originally
held in Portland, Ore. This year’s
competition will be held in New
Orleans, La.
The experience of the national
competition, and the program as a
whole, is nothing but supportive
of each youth’s talent, Luvert said.
“It’s a supportive environment,
in the fact that in between big
competitions, even people com
peting against each other are con
stantly encouraging one another,”
Luvert said.
One unique aspect of the pro
gram is its attempt to engage com
munity members as mentors to the
students involved in the competi
tion.
Mentor Charles Dalton, former
Eugene NAACP president, said be
ing a mentor is all about giving en
couragement to students.
“It can’t hurt to be a mentor; it’s
always helpful,” Dalton said.
Jacoby Black, a high school
sophomore at Marist High School,
said he wouldn’t be able to com
pete if it weren’t for his mentors.
Black’s mother, Serita Black, and
his aunt, Yvonne Stubbs, are his
mentors in the oratory and draw
ing categories.
“I wish there had been someone
to help me this way when I was
younger,” Stubbs said. “Mentors in
this program are helping to bring
out the positive African-American
youth in our society.”
Most of the mentors are profes
sionals and professors who excel
in specific subjects. Bill Sweet, a
literature and writing professor at
Lane Community College, has
been mentoring in the ACT-SO
program for five years. Sweet, who
is mentoring a student in the poet
ry competition, said the mentors
are there strictly for guidance.
“The work is entirely the stu
dents,”’ Sweet said. “Our job is to
look over their shoulders and give
them a push if they need it.”
Luvert, who can no longer take
part in the competition because
she is now a University student,
decided to continue in the pro
gram by becoming a mentor.
“It’s important to know that you
don’t just take part in this program
and then move on,” Luvert said.
“It stays with you forever. My be
coming a mentor shows how it all
comes together.”
Luvert will be mentoring Linnea
Leverson, a sophomore at Sheldon
High School, who got involved in
the program after she offended
some people at the National Asso
ciation Advancement of Colored
People Freedom Fund Dinner last
November.
“I was discussing white privi
lege, and I could tell that some of
the audience members took of
fense to what I was saying,” Lever
son said.
She decided she would focus
her speech for the oratory compe
tition on how the media and soci
ety put pressure on blacks to be
“more white.”
“I want to show people that so
ciety has been messing up peoples’
perception of African-Americans,”
Leverson said. “Even African
Americans can’t see their own
beauty.”
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