Youth Leadership Lauderdale participants learn about local higher educational opportunities

The Youth Leadership Lauderdale Program helps transform aspiring juniors to become future community leaders; one concept organizers wanted to teach them was about higher education.

Today at Meridian Community College, over 30 juniors learned about the many educational resources in the area and also were afforded the opportunity to speak to M-C-C President Dr. Tom Huebner.

“It’s just leadership skills they’ll need not only for now , for college:but in the years to come when they reach their workforce age, and so anytime we can enlighten them and open up doors for them. That’s kind of our goal but also we want them to be able to see all of the great things that Meridian and Lauderdale County has to offer.”

East Mississippi Business Development Coordinator Casey Holladay says there is an itinerary lined up for juniors to learn about all the local education resources at hand.

“They’re going to Ross Collins Career and Technical Schools, they’re going to MSU Meridian downtown, and then they’re going to go to MCC Workforce. They’re dived up into groups to be able to go to these places; it just opens their eyes actually to what they do. They’re so many people; we do this with the adult program and every year they come back and say wow, I had no idea all of the programs that Ross Collins had to offer.”

Holladay adds it’s not long before students will have to make that decision about their future.

“I would hope that in a year from now they’ll be seniors and they’ll be making those decisions, and so the hope is that along the way of this program that we were able to provide some knowledge to be able to better make those decisions for them.”