Teenagers are a varied lot. Occasionally, you meet a Hermione Granger type, or an Urkel.
But in high schools across America, it’s more common to encounter their socially dominant counterparts: slothful souls who experiment with bad language, champion bad posture and premise their political worldview on the insight that rules, government and all earnest aspiration are the sort of deeply suspicious activities promulgated by adults.
Yet on Friday in the Durango High School auditorium, no sulking, brooding or dejection was in sight. Instead, the bleachers were a sea of Lisa Simpsons, Tracy Flicks and Potsies – all radiant with social purpose – as DHS hosted 500 student leaders from 49 school districts across the state for the 2013 Colorado High School Activity Association Fall Student Leadership Conference.
The three-day conference, which started Friday, took a year for the DHS student government and teacher Dale Garland to plan and nearly $50,000 (most of it donated). The gathering in Durango also marks the first time CHSAA has let a school outside the Front Range host the conference.
Bringing 500 kids to Durango, with some traveling 12 hours by bus from Greeley, was no easy feat. DHS tried to make their efforts worth it. In addition to leadership training during the day – where kids were versed in everything from marketing to “random acts of kindness,” student leaders were dispatched to ride the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad to visit a pumpkin patch. All weekend, they’re spending their nights eating at local restaurants and sleeping in local hotels.
With help from the Durango Chamber of Commerce, DHS brought in Tommy Spaulding, author of New York Times bestseller It’s Not Who You Know, to give the keynote address to a rapt audience in the DHS gymnasium, in which Spaulding extolled student leaders to travel the world and cultivate a servant’s heart.
Garland said the event – a great coup for both DHS and the city of Durango – had only been possible with community support.
He said two seniors, Katja Max, DHS student body co-president, and Meredith Nass, student body vice president, had been indispensable.
Nass said the experience of connecting with other student leaders had been “invaluable.”
Max said she was having the time of her life, and though Friday night’s bonfire had been canceled, she was looking forward to the dance.
She said expectations were high.
“These are the students who throw the dances, who dance at every school dance, and they’re all here tonight – all 500 of them,” Max said.
cmcallister@durangoherald.com
