By: Owen Fugit

Editorial Editor

It would be an understatement to say that LGHS senior Zachary Benitez, better known by his initials ZB, has a lot going on. When he is not working on assignments from one of his three AP courses, Benitez can be found working at the local TV station, KCAT, or writing and practicing an award-winning speech. With his little free time—when he is not traveling, of course—Benitez practices his photography skills or works on his memoir about his time in the world of speech and debate. 

Benitez started his career in speech and debate in sixth grade. Since then, he has been a tournament champion at multiple speech competitions and is now the president of the speech team at LGHS. Despite this, he was not always this successful. Benitez began speech and debate as a way to “break out of [his] comfort zone,” and learn a new skill. For his first meeting, Benitez brought his friend with him, and explained, “Both of us were wildly unprepared for any kind of speech event…before we knew it, it was a couple months later, and we were going to our first tournament.” 

Benitez competes in a category of speech and debate known as Original Oratory (OO) which is “a 10 Minute pre-memorized speech that tackles a societal problem [discusses] the effects of that problem, and then [offers] some solutions to fix that problem.” This year, Benitez’s speech was about how society views winning, explaining that his speech talks about how “we really need to be able to celebrate personal growth and success on a level that doesn’t involve winning.” 

Tangent to his speech career, Benitez is working on “a nonfiction book all about [his] time in speech…the goal of it is to help inform people about this community because really, nobody knows what we do.” Benitez said that his accolades and achievements in speech qualify him to write the book, which also serves as a passion project to keep him connected to the world of speech and debate after high school.

Simultaneously, Benitez works as the TV Manager and Technical Director at KCAT, Los Gatos’ public access station. “I attended a summer camp there,” Benitez said. “At the time it was just a large room with a lot of cameras and a lot of technology that to me were just the most fun toys in the entire world.” Benitez enjoys the thrill of a live production set, especially how involved he can get, saying “The best part of it for me [is] if I’m able to constantly feel like I’m doing something that’s integral to the success of the team.”

Even with many duties at school and at work, Benitez finds time for photography, saying, “I can make art with a camera.” Benitez realized at a young age that photography was a form of art that he could make his own. Today, Benitez uses a simple, no-frills camera that forces him to “focus to have a really locked-in eye as a photographer.” Benitez has hopes of potentially working as a photojournalist in the future.

From photography to speech and live broadcast, it is hard to find something that Benitez does not do. Benitez is committed to New York University and wants to work in their liberal studies program before moving into communications or journalism.