When the regional final of Lions Youth of the Year is held in Armidale next March, Thurkka Jeyakumar will be the local student carrying the city's hopes.
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The PLC student won the local Youth of the Year competition, against six other students, this month.
Thurkka and the other entrants were interviewed by a panel of judges about academic achievements and their interests, before they competed in a public speaking competition in front of the Armidale Dumaresq Lions Club on Wednesday, November 6.
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There they had two answer two impromptu questions, which involved speaking for two minutes about a topic they had just been giving.
The second of the impromptu questions asked the students which world leader they would like to meet, and the answers included Winston Churchill, Julia Gillard, Robert Menzies, Donald Trump and Joesph Stalin. The first question had required them to speak on the topic 'age before beauty'.
Later in the evening, the students all delivered a five-minute prepared speech on topics of their choice, which tackled topics including mental health, drought, lonliness, and reconecting in a divided society.
Thurkka's prepared speech was about minorities being underepresented in our media.
"Growing up in Australia, and gowing up as a non-white Australian, it's something I've noticed that affects a lot of ethic youth in Australia and it's something that not many people talk about," Thurkka told The Armidale Express after she had been declared the winner.
Thukka said she had spoken about the issue at similar competitions in the past.
"It's such an important issue, and one that not many people know about, but I think it's the thing that affects most of the ethnic youth in Australia today," she said.
The seven entrants were from TAS, O'Connor Catholic College, NEGS and PLC.
It was held at Armidale City Bowling Club, and the guest speaker was state MP Adam Marshall, who was a contestant in the competition, when he was at high school almost 20 years ago.
Mr Marshall made it through to the national final as a teenager, where he won the public speaking prize.
Other notable former entrants include former prime minister Kevin Rudd, past Queensland premier Peter Beattie and ABC's Sabra Lane.
