“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” is a popular phrase taught to many people at a young age. Guest speaker Josh Coburn decided to teach Warsaw students a new phrase in order to send a positive message and to encourage them to always be kind, “If you have something nice to say, say it.”

The Benton County Youth Coalition, working with the high school’s Voices Of the Youth, hosted an assembly that would not only benefit the students, but the community as well, on Monday, March 9.

Voices Of the Youth director and teacher, Dustin Daniels worked with the directors of the Benton County Youth Coalition to get the motivational speaker Josh Coburn to come and present to both the middle and high school, and again later that night for the community.

“I was beyond happy with him and what he talked about, he was outstanding, he really lives what he talks about, he is the same person when he is outside of his job and I really respect that,” said Daniels.

“The reason that I do what I do is because the future depends on our youth, and if they don’t have the self belief and told to treat others well, then our future is lost,” said Coburn. “The primary message that I try to give is just about personal value, kindness, and perseverance,” said Coburn.

The title of the presentation was “manners and motivation.”

“My goal is for the students to take away that they can always overcome obstacles, find strength in themselves, and know that they can live their dreams,” said Coburn.

There were many students who were inspired by what Coburn had to say and were going to make an effort to make changes in their lives.

Senior Trevor Barb was one student who was impacted by Coburn’s speech. Barb now wants to try to help people who need it.

“Hearing him made me want to focus more on who I want to be, it also made me want to be nicer to people,” said Barb

Freshman Paige Mebruer was very inspired by the assembly and how Coburn had overcome so many obstacles.

“I think it was great how he got himself out of a bad situation, I also loved that he came and talked about this problem because the more people that are aware of a problem the more people there are to fix it,” said Mebruer.

During the assembly, Coburn asked two students, freshman Madison Rozzel and senior Bailey Jelinek, to stand in front of the student body while the crowd said nice things about them. This was done to demonstrate how saying nice things to someone can boost their mood and help them feel good about themselves.

“When people were saying good things about me it made me feel really good about myself, but at the same time I was scared someone was going to say something mean,” said Jelinek.

When he demonstrated this, teacher Amy Spunaugle was someone who was moved by what he had to say and how he was working on bringing kids up.

  “This entire presentation just reaffirms to me that anyone’s life can change in a split second, one smile, one nice phrase, may be what a person needs to make it through the day,” said Spunaugle.