Senior Wakatipu High School pupils will this week pay tribute to sacrifices made by New Zealanders during World War 1.
On Thursday, the school will hold a speech contest, the winner competing at a regional heat for the ANZ RSA Cyril Bassett VC Speech Competition, before the national final in March.
The winner of that will go to Gallipoli for Anzac Day.
Wakatipu High School's acting head of English, Lucy Ford, said up to 10 pupils would compete in Queenstown on Thursday afternoon.
They would each present a six- to eight-minute speech on the subject of New Zealanders in WW1, which could be about a serviceman or woman, a living veteran or an aspect of the Anzac Day memorials.
Run in conjunction with the Queenstown and Arrowtown RSAs, the top two speakers would receive a trophy and a cash prize and present their speeches at those towns' respective Anzac Day services in in April.
The competition aims to promote in young people a deeper understanding and appreciation of sacrifices made by New Zealanders who had served in wars and armed conflicts overseas.
It takes its name from Lieutenant-colonel Cyril Bassett, of Auckland, who spent his entire working life at the National Bank, now ANZ New Zealand.
Mr Bassett was the first and only New Zealander to be awarded the Victoria Cross in the Gallipoli campaign of WW1 for "most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty'' on the Chunuk Bair ridge in the Gallipoli Peninsula on August 7, 1915.
His citation said after the New Zealand Infantry Brigade had attacked and established itself on the ridge, Mr Bassett, in full daylight and under continuous and heavy fire, succeeded in laying a telephone line from the old position to the new one on Chunuk Bair.
He was then brought to further notice for "further excellent and most gallant work'' connected with the repair of telephone lines by day and night under heavy fire.
