What is Youth Leadership Bartholomew County?
Youth Leadership Bartholomew County (formerly known as Youth Salute) is a program designed to recognize and reward the positive accomplishments of our community's youth.YLBC has been an active program in Columbus for more than 20 years.Through photographic displays and media coverage, our community hears about these positive accomplishments.
The program begins in February with the nomination of youth leaders from our area high schools.Columbus North, Columbus East, Hauser and Columbus Christian. The nominees are high school juniors with at least a B+ (9.0) average and they must demonstrate leadership at school, in the community, and/or at church.
In March and April the students prepare a resume of their accomplishments during high school. This resume is graded and given points as one of three scores toward scholarships.This helps the students to collect and organize their personal information early, and use this resume for college applications and other scholarships. The students prepare an essay which is also graded and given points.This past year the essay topic was Identify and describe your best leadership characteristic.Identify the leadership quality or skill that you most need to improve and describe steps to take to develop this characteristic.This essay is excellent practice for college application essays.
Photographs of the students are taken at Parker Portraits during the summer at no charge. These photographs are displayed on Leadership Day and through out the year at all the platinum level sponsored businesses.
In August, all students who have completed a resume and essay are interviewed by community leaders and volunteers. The interviews are scored and added together with the essay and resume scores.
Leadership Day is held at the Holiday Inn. Mr. Ben Wagner has facilitated this day for the past 2 years. Columbus Rotary hosts the luncheon that day at The Holiday Inn. Last year, Gary Bebe was the luncheon speaker. Students with the highest point totals for resume, interview, and essay are honored. The top four attended Leadership Bartholomew County and also received monetary awards.
Youth Leadership Bartholomew County is a way for us, as a community, to recognize our youth who are making a difference.
Thank you to these sponsors including:
Columbus Service League
Columbus Rotary
Cummins, Inc.
Boyer Machine and Tool
Edward Jones Investments
David and Susan Barker
Rich and Tammy Freeland
Marc and Nina Rothbart
Brian and Patty Hannasch
Rick and Alice Johnson
First Financial Bank
Johnson Ventures
Prestige Printing
Circle K
Voelz Body Shop
SIHO Insurance Services
Boilerplate Imaging
Parker Portraits & Associates
Bartholomew Consolidated School Foundation
The Heritage Fund - The Community Foundation of Bartholomew County
To make a donation to support Youth Leadership Bartholomew County, please send contributions to:
Youth Leadership Bartholomew County
P.O. Box 2391
Columbus IN 47202
Thank you for supporting and recognizing these outstanding youths in Bartholomew County!
