Youth leadership conference

In Dickinson County, students were teaching other students today how to serve as leaders in their classrooms and their communities.

The North Dickinson County High School student council hosted a regional youth leadership conference.

About 150 students attended from six southern U.P. schools and one northern Wisconsin school.

Many of them were forced to step outside their own comfort zones.

Cory Roell, the adviser for the North Dickinson student council, says they were working on public speaking skills.

He says they also learned about project planning by scheduling a homecoming dance, with a few extra snags thrown in to keep the students on their toes.

In a communication drill, they had to use verbal and non-verbal instructions to guide a blindfolded student around small obstacles built out of plastic cups.

It was frustrating for some students.

Iron Mountain High School junior Abby Ketcham says since many students in the North Dickinson gym were yelling instructions at the same time, it was difficult for the blindfolded person to know whom to listen to.

This was the second year for the conference.

North Dickinson students attended a similar event last fall hosted by the Michigan Association of Student Councils, and they based today’s conference on that earlier event.