PCMS & Youth Leadership

Thanks to a challenge by the Kansas Health Foundation, Pittsburg is set up well for the future. Just ask Kayla Joy and Mark Johnson.

That's because they are two of the primary pushers behind the Crawford County Youth Leadership Foundation, which has grown exponentially in just a few short years.

Students from Pittsburg Community Middle School were able to display that success when PCMS hosted the Pittsburg Area Chamber of Commerce Coffee Friday morning.

Joy said the idea for the program started in 1999 with a call from a representative of the health foundation.

Joy said: "They said 'We've got a challenge for you. We would like to challenge you to rethink the way you do leadership in your community, because we believe what you are doing is all and well, but we also believe we can help you make it better. And we challenge you to look beyond traditional networking and information programming and to really enhance your program through true leadership capacity for all people.'"

And the program has been a booming success. Joy said the city's willingness to change has been extremely beneficial to the community, bringing in an estimated $850,000.

"Because we said yes to changing leadership programs in Crawford County, our community has benefited over and over and over again with the Kansas Health Foundation," she said.

Johnson said the program was simply a necessity to set Pittsburg and Crawford County up for future success.

"We looked at the future of Pittsburg and looked at the leadership in Pittsburg and decided we didn't want to sit around and wait until tomorrow to figure out who those leaders would be," he said. "We want to develop those leaders today."

The program involves community leaders going into classrooms at area middle schools and junior high school and educating students about leadership.

Mariah Forrest, one of the PCMS students at the event, said she has learned a lot in her short time in the program.

"It has been quite an experience for me and my classmates," she said when addressing the audience. "We have had so much fun doing all the activities in front of new groups."

And while the students who are directly involved in the program get a hands-on feel for leadership, Johnson said all the students learn from the exercises, and learn how to be successful leaders and teams with their peers.

"They learn all about getting along, being a team, communicating, trusting one another," Johnson said. "They're doing it with the classmates they're around every day."

Johnson said he can tell how much the program is having an impact simply by the growth in community support.

"Last year, we took four facilitators into three classrooms in two schools and touched the lives of 60 kids," he said. "This year, we've taken 40 volunteers into 20 classrooms in six schools in every school in the county and we've touched the lives of 500 kids on a regular basis."

Another impact, according to Johnson, is that teachers are incorporating these lessons into everyday lessons for their student. Johnson said that continuing work at leadership will help develop strong future leaders.

"Our feeling is that you just don't wake up some day and 'oh, I'm going to be a leader,'" he said. "You kind of have to have it fostered, nurtured and role-modeled."

In other news at the meeting:

* Chuck Delp of Southeast Kansas Recycling, Inc. announced that a recycling program has been started at the elementary school level in Pittsburg USD 250 and will soon expand into all district schools. He also mentioned that Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has set the recycling center as a priority visit site for April 26.

* Chamber members were informed that Thursday, March 9 is Pittsburg Day on the Hill and were encouraged to attend and voice concerns on local issues and proposed legislation that could affect southeast Kansas.

The Morning Sun, (www.morningsun.net) March 4, 2006