Cass High School has a new cohort of student leaders ready to take on the 2024-2025 school year!
Thirty-five students from Cass attended a Leadership Retreat at Young Harris College July 9th-11th. These students were chosen to attend based on various leadership roles they each have filled within in our school from student government members, to athletic leads, to club presidents! During this 3-day retreat led by teacher Mr. Christopher Page, students learned about the skills, knowledge, and dedication it takes to be effective leaders. By the middle of day 2, they were already splitting into committees and working to plan school-wide events, including Homecoming 2024!
Dylan Miller decided to attend the retreat after one of his coaches recommended he give it a try. As a senior leader for our Men’s Basketball team, he knows a lot about what it takes to lead a group.
“It always takes a team to do a difficult task and in life, you’ve got to learn to work well with others,” he says. “I learned the past few days that it’s better to work with people than against them.”
Dylan Miller, Cass High senior and attendee of the 2024 Colonel Leadership Retreat
When asked about his favorite part of the weekend, Dylan said he enjoyed the chance to meet new people.
“When I came here, I only knew one person really, and now I know almost everybody. So just enjoying my time with my classmates, talking to them, laughing, and having fun together.”
And there was no shortage of fun on this trip! The group even got the chance to prove their teamwork skills out in the wild on a river-tubing adventure! They were met with plenty of physical and mental obstacles out on the water, but armed with their wits, some sticks, and each other, they conquered their fears and made it downstream!
Sophomore class president Shania Hernandez says she enjoyed the experience as well, especially the chance to learn and grow with older students.
“It’s been interesting seeing all these different ideas, because normally we’re just limited to our fellow class officers and we don’t get to hear from the leadership classes or officers from other clubs. We’ve all worked together and it’s been cool seeing what we can accomplish.”
Shania Hernandez, Cass High sophomore and attendee of the 2024 Colonel Leadership Retreat
When asked about her biggest takeaway from this retreat, Shania says it was “learning how to deconstruct or plan an event.”
“The way that Mr. Page, Mrs. Shofner, and Miss Jackson explained it to us, how we have to think about all the different components that it takes to plan something, that is my biggest takeaway. Learning how to do all these things and remembering to do each step.”
With a backdrop of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains behind them, these future leaders worked together to face challenges and make tough decisions. We are so proud of their hard work and can’t wait to see how they use these skills to lead our school this coming year!
