Future leaders graduate first-year program

After a whirlwind year of learning about how Warren County operates, which came with a generous dose of fun, the Chamber of Commerce-sponsored Youth Leadership Opportunity Warren County class of 2007-08 held its formal graduation ceremony last Thursday night.

This year’s class included 20 students from Warren County High School and Boyd Christian School.

On hand were a number of local individuals who were directly involved in the project, including WCHS faculty sponsors Monti Hillis and Dawn Cantrell and Chamber president Alicea Weddington, among many others.

Thanks to the organizers, and the students themselves, the graduation was quite a departure from the usual line of students passing the podium to receive their diplomas. In fact, the students came up with the idea of presenting the diplomas to each other, one at a time, with some pretty revealing, and amusing, anecdotes about their fellow graduates.

But perhaps the highlight was a series of videos from an early team-building exercise where they had two hours to produce a video designed to promote Warren County to an individual who was thinking about opening a business here.

‘They had never worked together and some didn’t even know each other very well,’ longtime Chamber supporter Larry Flatt said in his introduction. ‘We gave them a camera and told them what they had to do, and they literally had to come up with ideas in the 15 minutes or so it took to drive to the different locations. These are the unedited videos they came up with.’

What followed was some sincere and creative promotion of their home county, interspersed, as expected, with a hilarious series of scenes that were obviously destined for the cutting room floor, with one standout scene occurring when class member Cole Stubblefield was attempting to describe Collins River.

‘They just don’t make rivers like this anymore,’ quipped the hapless Stubblefield, instantly grimacing at his ad-libbed choice of words.

The students laughed at themselves good naturedly along with the rest of the audience, but as the ceremony concluded they some good things to say about the experience.

‘I’ve learned so much this year,’ said class member Kathryn McKinley. ‘We’ve done so many things within the community. We learned how to become better leaders. We’ve learned about agriculture, business and industry around Warren County. It’s just been an awesome experience.’

Holly Ray talked about the fun that came along with the learning.

‘I learned that you can be a leader and have fun at the same time,’ Ray said. ‘I had a great time with all my friends and making friends with the people I didn’t know. I really enjoyed this year and I’m going to miss them all.’

Stubblefield agreed the class was fun for all, but he also enjoyed the chance to visit and learn about places he had never been.

‘It was a blast,’ Stubblefield said. ‘I liked going to the Tennessee State Capitol. It was fun, but we also learned a lot.’

Flatt says he became involved because of what he gained from his experience with the Leadership classes.

‘I’m involved because of Leadership McMinnville which taught me that we need to give back to the community,’ Flatt said. ‘These students are our future leaders, and if we don’t instill in them the logic of why we need leaders, and inspire them to want to be leaders, our community is going to be leaderless. It inspires me every time I get around these young people because of their energy, their enthusiasm, their willingness to take on a challenge, and just their overall ability to have fun whatever they’re doing.’

Faculty sponsor Hillis also lauded the students on their performance.

‘I think this class set the bar tremendously high for the next class,’ Hillis said. ‘They couldn’t have been a better class. We had 20 wonderful students, and I enjoyed every minute of working with them.’