Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

While many high school students are still enjoying their summer break, students from Buckingham County High’s Raider program participated in one of the nation’s premier leadership training camps. The JROTC Cadet Leadership Challenge (JCLC) Eagle is located on Fort Barfoot, near Blackstone. The mission of the camp is: “To motivate young people to be better citizens” and the staff of the camp does all that it can to challenge these future leaders. The Buckingham students who graduated from this year’s camp are: Rylynn Morris (third JCLC Camp graduate), Chastity Hernandez, Cole Wells, Christian Mendez, Adele Sayer, Maira Portllio all were second time JCLC graduates, John Leonard, Elizabeth Stevens, Paulette Battle, Jackson Clough, Eli Smith, Tristan Miller, Aden Arias and Jarmain Kasarai made the Commandant’s for placing at the top 10% of his graduating class.

The 5-day camp combines hands-on leadership training as the students participate in a series of activities: STEM; orienteering; rappelling; obstacles course; drown-proofing; First Aid; and CPR where students are exposed to new and different experiences outside of the classroom. Every day presents challenges to the students as they rotate through leadership roles as they plan and organize each day’s activities.

The week of activities culminates in a field day where each student group competes for camp honors in athletic and organizational events that test both physical and mental and collaborative skills.

The camp is sponsored by the U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) and conducted by staff drawn from 22 high schools in the South and Central Virginia Areas and North Carolina. This year Buckingham County High School sent Sergeant First Class (Ret) Bruce Grazier, the Senior Army Instructor. Buckingham County High School, Chaperone Angela Swecker, one school nurse, Barbara Jamerson and one bus driver, D.J. Anderson.