ALFA Youth Leadership Conference
An elite group of ninth and tenth graders from throughout Alabama attended the Alfa Youth Leadership Conference at the 4-H Center in Columbiana on April 29-30. Macon East Academy representatives included: Anna Watson, Wade Desmarais, Ryan Russell, Matthew Kitchens, Anna Glynn Lott, and Jack Jones.
Students applied for the conference which focused on training future leaders. It is sponsored by the Alabama Farmers Federation, Alabama Farmers Agriculture Foundation, county Farmers Federations and Alabama Farm Credit (AFC). Attendees came from 30 counties and worked to identify personal strengths, develop negotiation skills and discover a passion for service. The agenda included team-building activities at the 4-H Center’s challenge course and teen safety workshops. AFC was a new supporter of the program this year and sponsored motivational speaker and leadership trainer Rhett Laubach who challenged students to be a positive influence on their peers.
Macon East Academy senior, Will Desmarais was selected as a 2021 recipient of the Daughters of the American Revolution Good Citizen Award. The DAR Good Citizens Award and Scholarship Contest, created in 1934, is intended to encourage and reward the qualities of good citizenship. This award recognizes and rewards individuals who possess the qualities of dependability, service, leadership, and patriotism in their homes, schools, and communities. These students are selected by their teachers and peers because they demonstrate these qualities to an outstanding degree. Will was also chosen as an AISA Studen Government Association Leadership Scholarship recipient. Will is an outstanding academic student, student manager for the football and baseball teams, and serves as an officer and member in several school organizations. Will plans to attend Auburn University in the fall and major in Business Administration.
Seniors, Tanner Moore and Georgia Blaze represented Macon East Academy at the 62nd annual Jimmy Hitchcock Memorial Award ceremony. Since 1959, the objective of the Jimmy Hitchcock Memorial Award program has been to recognize Christian leadership in athletics and to encourage and inspire others to emulate the man whose memory is perpetuated by this award. Each year coaches nominate senior athletes who have displayed the most outstanding qualities of Christian leadership in athletics and possess the following qualities: strong character, dependability, 100% effort, team leadership, church leadership, school leadership, and scholastic leadership. Freshman students who exhibit these same qualities are also invited to attend the annual banquet and be recognized. This year, Katie Kitchens and Chase Lashlee represented Macon East Academy as 8th-grade certificate recipients. We are very proud of Tanner, Georgia, Chase and Katie who are all honored to be part of a prestigious group of Hitchcock nominees.
Two outstanding students from the Macon East Academy senior class were chosen for the Montgomery Lions Club Scholarship. To have two students from one school is unprecedented for this prestigious scholarship. Mary Hunter Wright and Tanner Moore were selected as two winners out of the six total for the Montgomery area. They were selected to attend the Lions Club high school leadership conference as juniors and competed to win these outstanding scholarships. Congratulations to both Mary Hunter and Tanner – we are very proud of you!
