McKenzie Students Attend RYLA

Each year the McKenzie Rotary Club afford two McKenzie students to the opportunity to take part in the Rotary Young Leadership Awards (RYLA). This year, Gracie Aird and Carton Townes attended RYLA camp at Austin Peay University.

The camp helped develop their leadership skills in a variety of ways. When they arrived, they were immediately put into teams that they would stay with for the week. Within the first few hours of meeting their teammates they had to do challenges in which they had to put their full trust in people they just met.

The camp put young leaders in difficult situations and made them rely on their team to get out of it. An example is when Aird was 50 feet up in the air on a ropes course at Fort Campbell and with no vision, she had to rely on her teammates to lead her safely across the course. Also at this camp each group had to make a presentation on one of the 7 areas of service and present it to the District Governor for a chance to have their project sponsored. RYLA brought in different guest speakers who spoke on different qualities of a good leader. It was a great opportunity to grow and experience with new challenges that built friendships that carried on after camp.