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Eleven James Madison Preparatory High School (JMPHS) Beta Club members attended a Leadership Summit, at Jekyll Island, Ga., on Thursday March 29 and Friday, March 30. This was JMPHS' third year attending the Summit, and they always look forward to the competition and the downtime the club members spend exploring the beach and other sites at Jekyll.
The Beta Club competed in two competitions: Rapid Response and Think Outside the Box. The Rapid Response team was made up of Payton Davis, Jade Greene, Makayla Thomas, Leah Androski, Jeremy Law, Reese McLeod, and Mikenzi Plain. In this competition, teams from two Beta Clubs were sequestered in a room and presented with a task to complete. While completing the task, the judges evaluated them on team cohesiveness, problem analysis, and execution of their solution. "Looking at their faces when they came out of the room I knew they had done really well," said Donna Law, JMPHS Beta Club sponsor. "Later, the judges told me that they were impressed with how well and quickly our team completed the task." At the banquet on Friday, March 30, JMPHS's Beta Club was the first team announced as qualifiers in the Rapid Response category to compete at Beta Club Nationals, in Savannah, Ga. in June.
The Think Outside the Box competition team consisted of Joseph Mancil, Jadyn Gore, Kayla Reeves, and Jacob Briggs. This competition required the team to analyze a complex scenario of a real-world problem and then give a presentation to a panel of judges of a solution to one aspect of the issue. With only a few hours allowed for them to pull their presentation together, they each gave a speech and were then questioned by the panel of judges, who evaluated them based on how well the team worked together with the content of their presentation and their responses to the panel's questions. On the last day of the Summit, JMPHS's team was again announced as having qualified to compete at Nationals in this category.
At the Summit, JMPHS was also given an Outstanding Leadership School award. "As a sponsor, I was very proud of how these students represented James Madison and their efforts in both competitions," said Law. "We are looking forward to going to Nationals."