The leaders of Challenge Day Club, National Honor Society, and Student Council took a field trip to Flower Mound High School on Monday, Sept. 25, to attend the ‘Renaissance Find Your Grind’ tour. This leadership program, hosted by Jostens, was meant to prepare students to become better school leaders.    

“The Renaissance program was an eye opening experience for me,” junior Jake Pool said.  ‘It showed me how much more I can get involved in my school and the society around me.”     

Find Your Grind taught the students several lessons on how to use their leadership skills to make a difference in the school.

“The biggest thing I learned is that if you want to do something, you can’t just talk about it, you actually have to go out there and do something to make a difference in the world,” Pool said.

Jostens utilized creative ways to teach students leadership lessons. One such method was personal testimony.

“My favorite part was probably whenever the speakers would talk about themselves,” Pool said. “They would communicate to the students as if they were teenagers, and they addressed us as peers rather than inferiors.”   

The student leaders weren’t the only ones who enjoyed the messages that Jostens conveyed.

“My favorite part of the conference was the two speakers’ testimonies on the importance of helping others out of the kindness of your heart,” Challenge Day Club sponsor Jenna Sutton said. “They encouraged us to be leaders and celebrate others instead of being influencers and just celebrating ourselves.”

The leaders are now taking the valuable lessons they learned at the conference and turning them into opportunities to help the school grow.

“We are making a ‘Hidden Talents Wall’ to recognize students in our school who don’t play UIL sports but have great talents,” Sutton said. “We also started a new group called the AHS Social Club that we are going to have bi-monthly social gatherings, open to all students.”