The gymnasium of the Campus Recreation Center on the Ohio State University-Mansfield/North Central State College campus was filled with an enthusiastic seventh and eighth grade girls on Thursday morning, all of them excited to participate in this year’s LeaderRichland program.
In its third year, the LeaderRichland program helps to introduce Richland County middle school students to the idea that they can further their education after high school.
The first year of the program was for all girls, the second for all boys, and the third for girls again. This year, more than 900 seventh and eighth-grade girls will participate in LeaderRichland over three days, May 15, 19 and 22. Participants come from schools all over Richland County, including Ontario, Shelby, Colonel Crawford, Mansfield City, Plymouth, Galion, Lucas, Richland Academy School of Excellence and Crestline.
“It’s girl power today!” said Bridget McDaniel, Executive Director of the Richland County Development Group and host of LeaderRichland. Thursday’s LeaderRichland session hosted students from Crestline, Galion, Lucas, Plymouth and Richland Academy.
McDaniel explained that more than 45 speakers from the community including area business and community leaders will represent a variety of careers for the students to learn about. She said one goal of LeaderRichland is to emphasize that all the careers students learn about are located in the communities of North Central Ohio.
“We as the adults in the community are really concerned because we need you young people to be back with us, so we can someday retire and you can take over the community for us,” McDaniel said to the students. “We’re going to try very hard to encourage you to stay in our community or come back to our community. There are just a million opportunities for you to stay here or come back here after you finish your education.”
The students also heard from President Dorey Diab, Ph.D. of North Central State College and Dean and Director Stephen Gavazzi, Ph.D. from OSU Mansfield. Both stressed the importance of higher education in order to obtain higher-paying jobs in the future.
“It’s not too early to start thinking about college right now,” said Diab.
“We’re here to help you understand that whether you’re going to start at Ohio State or North Central State, this is a great place to start,” added Gavazzi.
More than 20 groups of girls visited about six different career stations over the course of the day. Eighth-grader Madison Lasch from Plymouth said she was hoping to meet someone in the health field before the end of the day.
“I want to go into physical therapy, so I’m hoping we get to talk about that and get some ideas,” said Lasch.
“Everybody here has been very nice,” added Madisyn Smart, also an eighth grader at Plymouth who said she wants to be an anesthesiologist.
Before sending the students off to explore the campus, McDaniel encouraged them to ask lots of questions and be open-minded about their future careers.
“This is a very fast-moving world we’re in today and you will probably have four to five different careers before you retire, so you need to find out what all those career possibilities are,” she said.
It was a sentiment echoed by Lt. Col. Patty Barr with the 179th Airlift Wing RED HORSE division, who encouraged her group of students to dream big.
“Anything you want to do is at your fingertips,” she said. “Always remember that.”
“This is a very fast-moving world we’re in today and you will probably have four to five different careers before you retire, so you need to find out what all those career possibilities are,” said Bridget McDaniel.
