| On
October 20, 2000, Arapahoe Community College hosted the first
Colorado Youth Leadership Summit, a series of short seminars
aimed at high school age leaders. The event was sponsored and
chaired by Congressman Tom Tancredo from Colorado's Sixth
Congressional District and was attended by 84 students.
The Summit was ushered in by the
voices of Colorado youths as a short documentary lit up the
darkened auditorium. The "You Said It" video, which
had been taken the day before, contained a montage of area high
school students answering questions such as "What are two
important 'life choices' you have recently made?" and
"Do you use technology to improve your leadership
skills?"
The President of Arapahoe
Community College, Dr. James Williams, gave a short speech
welcoming the Summit's participants. "This summit signifies
renewal as well as change," explained President Williams.
"With this summit, we renew our commitment to nurture and
cultivate the leadership skills that are plentiful within our
area high schools."
After his welcoming remarks,
President Williams introduced the event's chair, Congressman Tom
Tancredo. Congressman Tancredo is a Colorado native whose career
in politics began while teaching at Drake Junior High School
when he promised his civics students that he would run for
office if each of them would become involved in a political
campaign. Each student volunteered, and Tancredo ran for the
Colorado state legislature.
The Summit's opening keynote
address was delivered by Entertainment Tonight co-host Bob Goen.
His humor and light touch won over the crowd as he encouraged
them to find their focus and to work hard. "The road to
success…is still made up of three basic things as far as I
know," said Goen, "and that's focus, hard work, and
perseverance. If you take those three things and mix them
together, then you're going to be successful."
David DeForest Stalls is an
ex-Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle who now directs The Spot,
Colorado's largest urban recreation department for youth. Along
with Congressman Tancredo, he moderated the Summit's Open Issues
session.
The Open Issues session began
with a short presentation by Alison Brown, a 5th grade student
from Walt Witman Elementary School who arranged a
Jump-Rope-A-Thon for Valeen Schnurr, a victim of the Columbine
shooting.
The Jump-Rope-A-Thon raised three
thousand dollars, and Alison was awarded the Prudential Spirit
of Community Award because of her efforts. "I learned how
good people are if you give them a chance to be part of a good
cause," said Alison.
DeForest Stalls then led the
audience through various exercises and brief discussions about
issues important to them, including stereotypes, abortion,
and the responsibilities of leaders.
In one exercise, he instructed
the students to take a sheet of paper and tear it into four
pieces. Next DeForest Stalls asked them to write down an
important element of their life on each piece. The students were
told to choose the paper containing the least important element,
crumple it, and throw it at the stage. They were asked to chose
another piece of their "life" to throw away, and then
another.
"Why did you chose those
four?" asked DeForest Stalls after the students were down
to one element and the stage was littered with balls of paper.
"Why did you select this one
to throw away before the other ones? And why did you keep that
last one?" He added, "When you choose to be a leader,
my guess is those four elements are going to come into really
strong play."
The focus of the Summit changed
to financial matters after a short break as representatives from
the National Endowment for
Financial Education (NEFE) took the stage to increase
the students' "financial literacy" and to warn them
about the pitfalls of credit. Each student received a packet of
information which contained a workbook and mouse pad with the
address of the NEFE website on it.
After a lunch in the college
cafeteria, the students returned to the auditorium, where
DeForest Stalls and Dean Askew of Street Beat teamed up to
provide the young leaders with some techniques for making proper
life choices. "If you to go to sleep at night and you can
close your eyes and say, 'I did right today,' you're a
leader," said Askew.
The concluding keynote address
was delivered by J.J. Ament, the chairman of Politi-CO, who
peppered his speech with colorful and humorous anecdotes. He
wasted no time in making a point about communication and
politics: "In 1960, the average length of a sound bite of a
presidential candidate was 42.3 seconds. That's how much time
you had to listen to a candidate for president to make a very
important decision on who you were going to vote for. In 1992,
that was 9.6 seconds. In 1996, it was 7.3 seconds."
"In the revolution that goes
in the world today," said Ament, "you've got to be
able to think creatively. You've got to be able to think fast
because we just don't have enough time any more to get all the
things done we want to do."
Congressman Tancredo concluded
the first Colorado Youth Leadership Summit by asking the
audience to be leaders for their peers and by wishing them a
happy life.
As the house lights came on and
the student leaders started drift out of the auditorium, a few
of them stopped to comment on the Summit experience.
"It was pretty fun,"
said Andrea May. "People had a lot to say about leadership,
what their views about how we should act, how well we should
present ourselves, how we can grow from it even though we are
already leaders. I benefited from that."
Erin Howe and Charlie Beresord
commented on the Summit's speakers. "They were great. They
had a lot of fun, interesting things," said Howe. Beresord
added, "The thing I liked most about it was listening to
Bob Goen speak. It thought it was the most memorable part." |
