Impact welcomes new members for upcoming school year

IMPACT cover — These 16 students and sponsors make up the 2015-16 Henderson Junior High Impact program. || BRAD KEITH/TheFlashToday.com

By BRAD KEITH

TheFlashToday.com NEWS & SPORTS – FREE & LOCAL

STEPHENVILLE (May 22, 2015) — What is Impact, one may ask.

And the answer, in relative terms, is quite easy.

It’s like Leadership Stephenville, for junior high students.

And 16 students at Henderson Junior High make up the second class of inductees into the Impact program, the brainchild of the Leadership Stephenville Class of 2014. The new inductees will be part of Impact during the upcoming 2015-16 school year.

Sponsored by Dr. Stephen LaDuque along with HJH principal Renee Goodwin, Ashley Graves, Jahmicah Dawes, Gerrit Schouten, Lacy Barton and Mike Barnette, Impact strives “to make a positive difference in the lives of students by empowering them to ‘Impact’ their school and community,” according to the program’s mission statement.

Impact promotes the ideals of strong moral character and servant leadership among other core values such as integrity, mutual respect, charity, accountability and self-discipline.

Impact will even include a student leadership council to allow members to “actively participate in decision-making, planning, communication, scheduling and development of current and future Impact functions. Two female and two male students will be selected from among the group by members and sponsors to spend a semester to help coordinate activities and curriculum and to serve as liaisons between students and sponsors.

Impact sponsors are working to set up opportunities for students to learn more about Stephenville and the many ways they can serve their community and further develop their leadership skills. Some of the potential activities include touring Texas Health Hospital, nursing facilities, Tarleton student life facilities, a dairy farm, FMC, Tejas Tubular and Saint Gobain manufacturers, a dental facility, sewer facilities a fire department, a foster home and more.

There will even be a kickoff retreat on Friday, August 7, giving the newly inducted Impact members an opportunity to get to know each other, build trust, learn to work together, challenge themselves, overcome obstacles, improve communication and to be safe while having fun. The retreat will be held at the Tarleton Challenge Course.

All photos by BRAD KEITH/TheFlashToday.com: