Local students benefit from leadership camp

Three area students attended the Great Plains Rotary Youth Leadership Awards at Halsey 4-H camp, bringing home lessons on leadership, team-building skills and memories.

Megan Neal and Cassy Ross of Sidney and Jake Johnson of Potter gave a slideshow presentation for Sidney Rotary members at Buffalo Point on Monday, speaking about the benefits of attending the six-day camp last month – particularly the bonds they formed with their fellow participants.

"I think all of us, our favorite part was meeting all the people," said Ross, a senior at Sidney High School. "When I came, I knew no one – none of these people."

Neal, a junior, agreed that getting to know her team members was enlightening. "Some of us were from big schools, and some of us were from itty-bitty 500- or 100-people ... towns," she said. "So that was interesting just to hear all their different sides and all their experiences."

The Sidney chapter of the Rotary club normally sends two students to RYLA camp each year, but were able to send three this year. Interested kids apply, are interviewed and then chosen based on their leadership potential.

The club pays all expenses for the the trip which, according to the Great Plains RYLA website, serves as a leadership and training program that "promotes, encourages and rewards outstanding young people who want to become better leaders."

Comprised of young men and women from central and western Nebraska, the program provides problem-solving games, challenge courses, team-building activities and group discussions to help participants gain confidence and leadership skills.

Johnson, a senior at Potter-Dix High School, learned that trust was a very important part of working with people, whether at a camp or in the workplace.

"When you meet a new group of people, the most important thing to have is trust," he said. "You do everything to keep that trust, because once you lose that, then there's nothing left – you won't be able to have a team."

Trust was the theme of the first activity upon arrival at the camp. Participants were asked to fall backward into the arms of people they had just met, trusting that they would be caught. Ross recalled the apprehension she felt at the time.

"It was kind of nerve-racking," she said.

Besides trust exercises, the group participated in a 2.5-mile hike, attended an etiquette dinner, played sports, performed service projects, listened to speakers and more.

At one point, participants were given the opportunity to ask questions of a panel comprised of Jaycee members, or Junior Counselors.

"All the Jaycees sat up there and we could ask whatever we wanted about college, about RYLA later on in their lives," said Ross. "'Should we come back as Jaycees ourselves? How do we do that?' Pretty much anything about life we got to ask them. It was really cool."

On the last day of the event, the students were treated to a dance and were allowed to take back the cell phones they had no access to throughout the week. Many students weren't in much of a hurry to get them back.

"I thought I would miss it a lot more than I did, because I didn't even realize I didn't have my phone most of the time," Ross said.

"We were so active you didn't even realize it," added Neal. "You wouldn't have had time to use it even if you wanted to."

Rotary International formed in 1905 and is considered one of the world's first service clubs. According to http://www.rotary.org, it began as a place where diverse individuals gathered together to exchange ideas and form meaningful friendships.

The club's mission has developed to include wide-ranging humanitarian service and seeks to "help build goodwill and peace in the world." Rotary is now an international organization with 1.2 million members from more than 200 countries and geographical areas.

RYLA, established in 1971, is just one of the Rotary programs designed to provide leadership lessons and give young people an opportunity to serve others.

Neal was inspired by the fortitude of some of the participants at the camp.

"I learned that even when people are pushed to the brink of breaking – there's no way that they should have made it through, no matter what, they shouldn't have made it through but they did – and they came back and obviously they're at RYLA for a reason," she said. "They became leaders in their community through all this hardship, and it was crazy just to think of what these people went through. I thought that was amazing that they could do that, that they could come back from that brink."