Eleven Marion County High School students have been selected to join the MCPS Student Ambassador organization, co-advisors Laurie Followell and Troy Benningfield recently announced.
The new members include: eleventh-graders Jasmine Farmer, Michael Masterson, Nicole Montgomery, Morgan Schooling, Lily Thompson, and Leah Wright; and tenth-graders Charleigh Browning, Mandy Courtwright, Jeb Hughes, Sydnie Mattingly, and Halee May.
“We’re very excited about our new members this year,” Followell said. “They have been involved in leadership activities before so we think they’ll bring enthusiasm and new ideas. We’re excited about what they’ll bring to this group.”
The new members were informed they had been accepted recently when the group’s executive council made phone calls to the new members to congratulate them.
“We wanted to give our executive council more involvement in this process of welcoming new members, so they actually made the phone calls to the students who will be our new student ambassadors this year,” Followell said. “Our mission is all about growing leaders, so we want to give them leadership skills in all facets of life. So by having them make those phone calls, they were able to be more involved as a leader for their fellow students.”
Although this school year will undoubtedly look different for students, Followell said that the group’s core mission will remain the same.
“We’ve already worked on making our ambassador experience seem as much like the authentic experience as we can,” she said. “We’ve had discussions with our executive council about how we can still be in touch with all of our members and ways we can still pass on those leadership skills. So, we have ideas about our mentoring program, we have ideas about communication. It’s going to be a challenge, but we’re going to make it happen.”
Established in 2014, the MCPS Student Ambassadors are tasked with representing the school district at board of education meetings, community events, and school functions and focuses on building leadership and soft skills, especially public speaking. The group is a part of the Next Generation Marion County Initiative to provide leadership opportunities throughout MCPS.