KY Youth Seminar

Kentucky Youth Seminar

“Capitalizing on Cooperation” was the theme of the 2013 Kentucky Youth Seminar (KYS) held at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and six local high school students did just that while gaining a positive experience at the state seminar for the American Private Enterprise System or better known as APES. 

            The annual APES program begins at the local level with a two-day seminar uniting students from all five high schools, North Hardin Christian School and the home school community to learn how American businesses are organized. Local businesses and professionals speak on a variety of topics including corporations, cooperatives, legal aspects and effective communication. The top scholars at the local level are invited to attend the state seminar, KYS.  At both the local and state levels, the goals are to help participants better understand American business. They learn through solving problems, presented as board cases, and participants serve as officers and directors. The roles mirror the positions held in real-world corporations and cooperatives. This experience helps to provide leadership training and motivation to the leaders of tomorrow. Other highlights include the competition for cash awards, college scholarships and trips to the National Institute on Cooperative Education conference (N.I.C.E.) which will be held at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, VA, July 27^th- July 31^st.

            This year’s participants at the state seminar were Jacob Aydelott (JHHS), Robert Bell (FKHS), Anna Huffman (CHHS), Bradley Larimer (CHHS), Brooke Moody (NHHS), and Katrina Timbers (CHHS).

            Competition for awards and a chance to attend the N.I.C.E. conference was challenging but the students found great success at the conference. Hardin County’s delegation brought home more than $140 in cash awards. Two students (Moody and Larimer) qualified to attend the N.I.C.E. conference later this summer while Timbers was selected as an alternate for the conference. Four $600 college scholarships sponsored by the Kentucky Council of Cooperatives were awarded to Anna, Bradley, Brooke, Robert.  To qualify for the N.I.C.E conference and be awarded the scholarship, and cash prizes the students must take and excel in a series of exams and board cases about American business. 

I would like to go on saying that I really enjoyed being apart of this event and I really think it is a good one for college bound students. Programs like this, I would've loved to been aware of when I was in high school and it was just amazing to see self-motivating students taking advantage of the opportunities that had been in place for them.  Those students will be something special someday. I am sure of it.

I do want to say that I felt that it was a great recruiting tool for the university of Kentucky to allow housing in the Baldwin Hall for the duration of this program. Many of the students really were pleased in staying in such a nice dorm and they even asked me for my opinion on the dorm and even college life at UK. It was pleasing to me that I could be very informative to them and I even felt that I was an expert on speaking about UK. I believe I personally may have convinced some of them to even make the decision to come to college here.

In addition, I enjoyed in assisting in giving out campus tours, where I decided to take them to the James W. Stuckert Career Center to tell them about the advantages of have a resource where you can receive career counseling, resume critiquing, and mock interviews and to see them take something like that "so serious" was amazing. 

The whole entire KYS program is definitely one of my highlights so far in my internship! Such a great program with such great support from Nolin RECC.