March 5, 2008

On Tuesday, February 26, I had the opportunity to sit on the RYLA participant selection committee at Deposit High School.  RYLA, the acronym of the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards, is a conference exclusively for high school students during the summer following their junior year with the hope that they will share their experiences with their peers when they return to school for their senior year.  Each year, thousands of students have the opportunity to attend the week-long conferences held across the country and beyond.  In our Rotary district, spanning a huge portion of the Southern Tier from Oneonta to Ithaca, local Rotary Clubs have the opportunity to send students from their communities to the campus of the State University of New York College at Oneonta to meet and bond with other young people, participate in numerous character- and esteem-building activities, and explore their own leadership potential.  This year, the conference will take place over four days from the end of June into the beginning of July, during which the Deposit Rotary Club will be sending three local students to stay in a college residence hall—rooming with a student from another school whom they do not know—and attend the conference's offerings.  RYLA is a highly competitive but highly prized opportunity and nearly every student who attends comes to deeply treasure the experience as an inspiring and life-changing event.  Last year's participants Lindsey Wagner, Kim Bosket, and Amelia Blair were able to share their enthusiasm for RYLA at a Rotary lunch in the fall.  

 

Pete Hempstead, who has served for many years as Deposit's RYLA coordinator, chaired the selection committee which was comprised of Rotarians Tina Strong, Leo Cook, Bill Waldron, Ray Cornwell, and myself.  We were lucky enough to be joined by DCS senior Lindsey Wagner, who, as a RYLA alumna, was able to answer questions from the candidates and provide us all with greater perspective into what candidates could expect from the conference.  After spending the entire morning interviewing the ten truly impressive applicants, the committee finally settled on three students who we felt would both benefit tremendously from their RYLA experience and also well represent our community and their class.  Our deliberations were difficult, but we are very proud to announce our selection of Lydia Krembs, Zachary Matthews, and Brittany Stanton to serve as Deposit's delegates to the conference.  Congratulations to the participants and a big thank-you to all the applicants, Pete, the committee members, and our always-delightful RYLA cheerleader, Lindsey Wagner.

 

I'm also very happy to share that at our weekly meeting on Wednesday, Rotarian and DCS Superintendent Bonnie Hauber announced that, following the presentation of Mary Hogan and Dave Bergstrom regarding the Deposit Family Recreation Group and its valuable project at an earlier meeting, the district was able to enlist the help of a BOCES grant-writer to secure a generous grant from the Mee Foundation in Hancock.  Congratulations to DFRG and thank you to Mrs. Hauber!