HHS students tabbed for leadership conference

By Joseph Cyr
Staff Writer
    HOULTON — Two Houlton High School students will be joining 200 others from New England to participate in a four-day leadership conference this summer.
    Victoria Hanson, who will be a junior this fall, and Cody Woods, who will be a senior this fall, were both selected to participate in the New England Student Leadership Conference at Stonehill College in North Easton, Mass. July 21-24. The conference is only available for students who recently completed their sophomore or junior year.
    High school principals from Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachussetts and Rhode Island were able to nominate students. Hanson and Woods were nominated by Houlton High School Principal Marty Bouchard, and were then accepted by the Maine Principals’ Association.
Houlton Pioneer Times Photo/Joseph Cyr
FUTURE LEADERS — Houlton High School students Victoria Hanson, left, and Cody Woods were among 40 Maine high schoolers chosen to participate in the 2011 New England Student Leadership Conference at Stonehill College in North Eaton, Mass. from July 21-24.
    “We were fortunate enough to have two students selected out of just 40 in the entire state,” Bouchard said. “It’s a great opportunity for these two students.”
    Bouchard said in the past there was a national student leadership conference. Kacie Faulkingham was nominated and accepted to that program in Indianapolis, Ind.
    “That conference ceased to exist this year, due to budget constraints, but a regional group saw the value of it and put together the New England Student Leadership Conference,” he said.
    The curriculum for the conference focuses on the following areas: respect, positive values, perspective, sportsmanship, teamwork, healthy lifestyles, community service and self-evaluation.
    In addition to the conference curriculum, students are also able to choose two elective courses ranging from cyberbullying; social networking responsibility; drug/alcohol prevention; collegiate athletic participation; mental toughness/peak performance; student leadership; wellness; college admissions process; collegiate athletic recruiting; sportsmanship; and hazing.
    “We have to do some community service projects and attend conferences that focus on different points,” Hanson said. “It’s not just an academic conference, you can learn how to be a better leader for sports as well as in the classroom,”
    “I think it will help me become a better person for my peers and the community,” Woods added.