Patriot PAWS and American Legion host Youth Leadership Symposium

Rockwall area high school sophomores and juniors gathered Saturday, May 14, for a Leadership Forum presented by American Legion Post 117 and Patriot PAWS.

The students learned how to develop leadership skills based on John Maxwell’s Five Levels of Leadership. These include: Position, Permission, Production, People Development, and Pinnacle. Students separated into groups and moved to six different stations at the Patriot PAWS facility. Five of the stations were each centered around one of the leadership levels, and at a sixth station the students learned about community involvement and volunteerism.

Guest instructors for each station included: Chris Lynch (Position), Quint Avenetti (Permission), Rockwall County Commissioner Lee Gilbert (Production), Lorna Kipphut (People Development), and Joe McDonald (Pinnacle).

The keynote speaker was William Ramey, an Air Force navigator who went on from his military career to become the president of Certified Laboratories.

Mark Kipput addressed the students at the beginning of the symposium and encouraged them to get to know the veterans in the room with them.

“There are people here who have taken on the hardest leadership job there is: taking young men and women, not much older than you, into combat settings… and successfully led them and brought them home,” Kipphut said.

“That is the hardest leadership challenge out there. Leadership is about influence. If you are going to be a good leader, you are going to have good followers and less than good followers. The challenge is to take care of everybody.”

Ramey also opened the symposium with some short demonstrative exercises and a few words to the students about the true meaning of leadership.

“Leadership and authority are totally different things. With authority, you can force someone to do something. Leaders don’t’ have to force people to do things. Leadership is about getting people to do the things you wish for them to do that will perpetuate goals…so that everyone is marching in the same direction.”

Youth Leadership Symposium Coordinator Mike Donegan said the symposium was a huge success.

“The event Saturday was fantastic,” Donegan said. “Forty students attended the Leadership Symposium. These young people were achievers in the upper end of the bell curve. It was an engaging and personal event with a very positive impact on the students. Patriot Paws was super and the partnership is being rewarded with respect and devotion for both organizations.”

Patriot Paws Business Development and Event Coordinator JillAnn Gamble said she was pleased with the event and the budding partnership between the two organizations.

“This is a milestone for Patriot PAWS,” Gamble said. “We have tried for some time to cultivate relationships with veteran organizations in our area to cross support one another and synergize the efforts and services to our veterans. The relationship with the Terry Fisher American Legion Post 117 is proving to be a win-win relationship for both organizations, as well as the veteran community and the community as a whole.”

Since this was the first ever leadership symposium, the students were questioned about their experience at the end of the day to determine how they felt in an effort to continue improving the symposium in the future.

“Feedback from students has been extremely positive,” Donegan said. “Mark is preparing a review for the Executive Committee and recommendations for the future. It was a day of answered prayers.”

Story by Julie Anne White, Blue Ribbon News reporter. Photos by Austin Wells, Blue Ribbon News editor.
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