Local Toastmasters member going to speech semifinals

Hazel Dell — Jonathan Abuyan finished first out of more than 80 competitors in the district-level Toastmasters International Speech Contest in April, earning him the opportunity to compete against nearly 100 other participants in the semifinals at the 2016 Toastmasters International Convention on Aug. 17-20 in Washington, D.C. There, he will compete for one of 10 spots in the finals on Aug. 20 at the convention. Abuyan, a native of the Philippines who is a civil engineer with the Washington State Department of Transportation, joined Toastmasters in 2004 to improve his English diction and gain confidence in public speaking. Abuyan earned his spot in the semifinals with his speech “For the Sake of Harmony,” which was inspired by his mother-in-law, who was scared about her daughter entering into an interracial marriage. “At first, we seemed not to like each other,” Abuyan said of his mother-in-law in a release from the Toastmasters, “but (we) ended up treating each other like a mother and a son.”