By ALAYNA DAVIS
Moapa Valley Progress
A single student of Moapa Valley High School was chosen recently to compete in a national event hosted by the national Jobs for American Graduates (JAG)program in Washington DC. MVHS student Arianna Knighton made the trip for the National Student Leadership Academy competition which was held on Dec. 5-7.
Every year, The Academy selects students in JAG programs from all over the country to attend the competition. Students have to go through an application process, be interviewed by a panel of judges and get a recommendation from a JAG specialist. It wasn’t easy to qualify, explained local JAG speciality Tammie Archibald.
“She really had to go above and beyond to prove she was active in the JAG community because she was the youngest member ever to attend the event,” Archibald said of Knighton. “She has worked very hard the past year and she has demonstrated tremendous effort, she really is a remarkable young woman.”
During the trip, the students had a tight schedule to follow including competitions on day two. For the competition, Knighton was grouped with three other JAG students from Clark County schools.
“The competition I was placed in was called Project-Based Learning,” Knighton said. “We had to put together a project that shows a national problem and how we proposed how to resolve it.”
The topic of Arianna’s group chose to cover was about the national problem of anxiety. Each member of the team had to do his/her own research. Then they put their information together in a slideshow for presentation.
“We concluded that anxiety in students is causing a lot of health problems,” said Knighton. “Our proposal was to have students talk more about their emotions, and to have parents try to understand the students’ point of view. Students should also know their limitations and not pile up too many things at once.”
Although Arianna’s team didn’t win the competition, they were still happy to be there. “Someone from Missouri ended up winning the competition,” Knighton explained. “But I think it was the best weekend I’ve ever had so far, and it was a really cool thing to be a part of.”
After the competition, the students went sightseeing. They took a twilight tour of Washington. They also saw Arlington Cemetary and got to explore the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
“Washington DC is often picked for the competition location because it is the first city where the JAG program was started,” Archibald explained. “The students also get the opportunity to sightsee and learn about the Nation’s Capital.”
On December 5-7, all students had to go to a leadership meeting, with a group JAG randomly choose prior to the trip. They had groups of children from different states and different JAG programs. In these meetings, the students were taught ways to help their home JAG programs excel.
“This was an amazing experience and I’m so grateful I could have the opportunity to go to Washington DC,” Knighton said. “I made new friends and I hope I get more opportunities like this in the future.”
