55 years after he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lives on through the Linking Cultures of Frisco organization which recently awarded scholarships to seniors Amina Syeda and Elaine Mei for their oratory skills as part of  9th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Oration contest.

“I just thought it would be a good opportunity so I wanted to kind of just try my best at trying to get the scholarship because I also like the topic,” Mei said. “I think it’s really interesting, this theme of many cultures and one dream. There’s so many directions you can go with it. I thought there was a lot of room for creativity. I was just glad that I was a finalist to be honest. From there I didn’t really care that much about whether or not I got the money.”

Mei took first place and received a $5,000 scholarship while Syeda took second place, earning a $3,000 scholarship.

“The Linking Cultures of Frisco scholarship, it gives me a better opportunity to pursue the major I want to pursue at UTD and it allows me to actually get involved with the community because we met some really important people there,” Syeda said. “This scholarship is able to, not only influence others, but also influence myself

The five finalists presented their speech at the Verona Villa in Frisco in front of an audience of distinguished guests.

“I do think it gave me a good opportunity to just meet with people in my community, such as the two mayors of Plano and Frisco were there,” Mei said. “There was a senator, a former senator, and the chief of police was there, which was really nice because they talked about some pretty controversial topics of my speech and I’m really glad that didn’t really taint their opinions of me and it was nice to be able to speak about those things and then be able to talk about the people with it.”