Four San Marcos area high school juniors attended the Rotary Youth Leadership Assembly in January over the Martin Luther King Holiday weekend at the Newcombe Tennis Ranch in New Braunfels. Two of the students, Paula Gomez and Phinehas (Phin) Doiron, shared their experiences at the Rotary Club of San Marcos meeting on April 29. Also attending RYLA but unable to attend the Rotary meeting were Garcia Kamo Mull and Lily Markley.
RYLA is sponsored in this region by Rotary International District 5840. Other RYLA programs are held all over the world. RYLA offers an intensive four-day leadership experience where young people develop skills as a leader while having fun and making connections. The goal is to help students build communication and problem-solving skills, discover strategies for becoming dynamic leaders, and have fun and form new friendships.
The program in New Braunfels involved 160 high school students from all over South-Central Texas. They were organized into 14 groups of about a dozen students each. Gomez said the speakers and group leaders were fantastic. “Imagine a whole room of teenagers listening attentively to a speaker,” she said.
Doiron said a major benefit of the experience was that it encourages people to go outside their comfort zones. Both students said the experience helped them to become more comfortable with meeting new people and making new friends. Gomez said she also learned the importance of including shy and less talkative people in conversations. Doiron added that he learned the importance of building other people up and being supportive of them.
Both young people said they will enter their senior year of high school feeling more confident and wanting to be more active because of the RYLA experience.
RYLA began in 1959 in Queensland, Australia and became a global program of Rotary International in 1971. Today there are thousands of RYLA programs in countries around the world. Participation is open to high school juniors from both public and private schools. The Rotary Club of San Marcos contacts area high school counselors in the fall to identify interested students, and fully funds participation by four juniors each January.
