On Wednesday, Oct. 25, Jennings County High School hosted the third annual 2023 Hoosier Hills Conference Student Leadership and Sportsmanship Conference.
In attendance were high school students from Bedford North Lawrence, Columbus East, Floyd Central, Jeffersonville, New Albany, Seymour, and Jennings County.
The seminar was planned and put on by Jennings County’s members of the Student Athlete Leadership Team (SALT). JCHS junior Claire Hack played a special role in this year’s conference as she is a member of the IHSAA Student Advisory Committee. This is a prestigious committee as only 18 students from Indiana are selected to help organize an annual leadership conference, take part in running state finals for all IHSAA sporting events and more.
Hack and Floyd Central High School’s Pierce Derrungton presented about the “Champions Together” program, which works to bring students with and without intellectual disabilities together on the playing field.
Hack recalls that she learned at the HHC Leadership Conference “even schools we are competing with every day on the court have a common goal with unified sports” and that she “plans to bring back ideas other schools had with unified sports” to JCHS.
Seniors Jack George and Tatum Brown were two of the many helping hands who planned the event. George says that the JCHS SALT students broke off in groups to design three different student-led activities, created shirts, and made an itinerary for the day.
Former high school coach Donna Sullivan, Indiana University Columbus’s first athletic director, Zach McClellan, and director of the “Champions Together” program Brian Avery spoke to the students and helped to inspire and motivate them to reach their full potential, while remaining humble and having good sportsmanship.
Brown said “hosting the conference was fun and it was nice to see our SALT group come together to make fun ways for the schools to bond.”
As both Brown and George will be graduating in 2024, their advice for their underclassmen peers is “to use one another to become a stronger school and to be known for their sportsmanship” and “to be a leader, it takes communication, initiative, and respect for others.”
Jennings County High School’s athletic director, Cory Stevens, remarked that hosting the conference was “an overwhelming success.” He added that he “was extremely proud of the JCHS Student Athlete Leadership Team for all of the time and effort they put into planning, organizing, executing, and leading to make the event as great as it was.”
The work that JCHS’s student athletes put in the classroom and in a sport’s setting is truly remarkable and the future of Jennings County High School’s athletic department is bright.
Hannah Webster is a student at Jennings County High School. Send comments to editorial@therepublic.com.
