On October 25, Mr. Shelton took seven students to Hancock County Jail in Greenfield to participate in a leadership conference. The conference’s main goal is to build skills that it takes to be a leader. Students were taken into the jail, but they did not interact with any inmates.

For the first event of the day, all of the students who were inducted into the program sat in a room together and went through many icebreaker challenges to meet other participants.

Next, the students were split into teams with people from other schools and had to create the perfect leader. In group two, the most important characteristics were being humble and strong-willed.

After the introduction, the students were taken on a scavenger hunt throughout Greenfield, under the supervision of an adult leader. A few of the objects that we were looking for were “an officer in uniform” and “bow pow wow,” which was a hunt for the animal shelter.

Later, during the end of the scavenger hunt, all the students attended lunch in the soup kitchen, which is a community building that serves free meals for people in need.

Afterwards, the students were brought back to the jail and judged each other’s photos on how well they found their hidden objects. There was no winner because they were unable to get through all of the photos.

To conclude the day,  Mr.Shelton took his kids to Dairy Queen, which was a tradition for him.

The Mount Vernon students who attended were Tony Fleming, Ava Hampton, Chase Wilkerson, Macy Griner, Keelee Delello, Nathan Stadic and myself.

Something that I personally got out of this leadership introduction was the true value of teamwork. My group and I had to use teamwork to find all of our hidden objects in a small amount of time. By using teamwork, I also bonded with people that I had never met before, which is a beneficial life skill.

“The conference is only open to freshmen and sophomores. The program gives students and an opportunity to see what is involved in a community and puts them in a position to become leaders in the community,” said Mr.Shelton.