Marist senior Mia Narciso doesn’t talk just to hear herself talk.
She talks because she wants others to hear what she has to say.
The Palos Park resident is so good at it that she earned an Illinois High School Association speech state championship on Feb. 28 in the Original Oratory division at the Civic Center in Peoria.
She became the first female in school history to win a state title in speech and the first RedHawk overall to win one since 1987.
But winning is secondary for Narciso.
“There are very few moments in life where you go up in a room and have eight minutes of almost undivided attention to give a message that you really care about,” she said. “It’s rare to find those kinds of moments nowadays.
“For me, someone who is very focused on social justice and human rights – it’s more about that type of opportunity than it is winning. I’ll wake up at 4 a.m. on a Saturday to talk about it.”
Narsico’s topic was Generation Z and its future.
Hinsdale Central won the team state championship and co-coach Paul Woods was one of the judges of Narsico’s category.
“She was really special,” Woods said. “She was out of this world. Her oratory was so relevant, and she connected with her audience better than most oratories that I’ve ever seen.
“She talked about Gen Z and how they deal with the problems that exist in the world and she was so real. It was great.”
Narsico peppered in some watershed moments, 24-hour news cycle talk and living in the digital age opinions in her speech.
“I talked about how we have a certainly uncertain future,” she said. “Essentially, we have been given this world that is in a completely different capacity than those other generations.”
Dane Mayer and Gina Narciso are the RedHawks’ co-coaches and Gina is Mia’s mother. Her father is Eugene Narciso and her parents met at Bradley University, where they were both on the speech team.
Speech is just one part of Mia’s passions. She was co-founder and co-president of Marist’s Amnesty International chapter, the co-founder and president of the nonprofit Turn the Page Foundation and founder and president of the Leo Lions Club of Palos.
She is not sure where all of this will take her but she has four years of college to figure it out.
“I’m super passionate about advocacy,” Mia said. “I plan to go into business and or international relations. After the four-year college thing, we’ll see how that goes.
“I love to do anything where I can talk to people and communicate with people. I want to work with real people.”
Narciso also placed second in the state in Prose Reading as she examined the experiences of victims of war crimes committed by the Japanese Army in World War II.
Reavis did not have any state champions but had enough quality speakers to finish fourth in the state as a team.
Reavis’s Raeda Nassan took second in the Oratorical Declamation category and third in Original Oratory.
Rams teammates Joshuammi Arrocha and Rosandy Garcia-Gonzalez took third in Humorous Duet Acting, Garcia-Gonzalez took third in Original Comedy, and Charlize Burciaga was third in Poetry Reading.
Julia Rivera was sixth in Prose Reading and Ava Speck was a finalist in Informative Speaking.
Oak Lawn’s Gianna Golden took third in Radio Speaking and Olivia Kobylarczyk took fourth in Humorous Interpretation.