Lamar Rotary Hosts RYLA Students (Updated to Include Student Names)

Student Presenters at Rotary Luncheon

The Lamar Rotarians were given a report from selected students who recently attended a Rotary Youth Leadership gathering at Colorado Mountain College in Glenwood Springs, Colorado earlier this summer. Two groups of students were on hand for the Thursday, August 9^th event; one who had attended the leadership training the year before and the most recent attendees.

The four making the presentation are students of local schools who joined from 85 to 90 other students from around the state. One difference they noted was the interest students from larger population schools had for southeast Colorado students who had no more than 10-15 students in a grade.  “They found it hard to understand that there were so few of us and wondered how we spent our days in classes,” one student explained.

Rotarians Judy Turpin and Rick Robbins explained that many years ago, it was through the work of fellow Rotarian, Mike Renkin that local students were able to participate in the leadership sessions which began in 1993. Students presented a slideshow depicting some of the outdoor activities they attended, built to develop teamwork and trust in their extended partners and the manner in which it made an impression on them.  Lessons that they intend to put to use in their local school activities.

Robbins noted the transformation he has seen in the students, before and after the seminar. It was noted that RYLA was first held in Colorado in Lamar for the local Rotary District, #5470, principally through the efforts of Mike Renken in founding the annual activity.

The Lamar Rotary hosted the event at Las Brisas and the student’s families were on hand for the presentation as well as the buffet luncheon. The class of 2017 who attended was Mason Martinez from Lamar High School, Sophie Austin from Granada and Danielle Wallace of Wiley.  The class of 2018 from LHS was Alex Higbee and Ashley Gilmore as well as Maddie Thompson from Wiley and Torie Dunivan from Walsh.  Grace Williams of LHS Class of 2017 was unable to attend.

By Russ Baldwin