DAHLONEGA (Aug. 13, 2007) – Summer Honors Director Robb Sinn watched the approaching thunderstorm with dread. Forty kids had been rock climbing and rappelling all afternoon. Now they needed to evacuate from Mt. Yonah.

Robb Sinn and Hannah-Leigh Crawford, Leadership Award

"I'll remember that day for the rest of my life. It was scary," said Hannah-Leigh Crawford, a senior at Pickens High School, who attended Summer Honors 2007 along with 39 top teenage talents from across the region. "But we were safe – no one was letting anyone fall."

The trail to Yonah’s main rock face traverses a steep rock slab where hikers grip a cable for safety. When dry, the trail offers safe footing but when wet, both slab and cable become icy slick. A huge storm blew in, drenching the final minutes of the Summer Honors climbing event. An innocuous descent trail became the most physically challenging part of Summer Honors 2007.

Supported by an NGCSU President's Innovation Fund grant in 2006, Sinn redesigned the Summer Honors curriculum to include adventure-learning and leadership training. Summer Honors traditionally focused solely on academics.

Grounded in theory, the teams of high schoolers attack extreme challenges on the Pine Valley ropes courses and Leadership Reaction Course, scaling trees and towers, learning to safely use climbing gear, and clawing past obstacles. Leadership scores for each event count toward the team competition.

"Everyone [on our team] got a chance to be the leader," said Crawford, who noted that in high school, some leadership roles seem to be based on seniority, not ability. "It was fun to compete on a level playing field."

"They experiment to find what works," Sinn explains. "We score the events, offer suggestions for improving, help teams deal with friction, demand positive communication, and send them out for more graded events. You can't learn leadership from a lecture. You need practice."

The adventure-learning culminates with the rock climbing and rappelling event at Mt. Yonah. Other leadership events include a team-based Quiz Bowl and Camp Olympics. Classroom leadership instruction culminates with a conference call.

Students read the novel “Ender's Game” before arriving at the program in preparation for a guest appearance by author Orsen Scott Card during Summer Honors.

"Talking to Orsen Scott Card was so cool," Crawford said, referring to the Nebula Award winning author of “Ender's Game.” “I thought he would give concise answers - not really take much time. But we were allowed to ask more than one question. He was really open to talking to a bunch of high school kids. It felt cool talking to an author who wrote this really great book."

"I liked how we talked about different movie characters in ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Harry Potter,’" Crawford said. "We separated out the different kinds of leaders. It really helped me understand the type of leader I wanted to be."

Donna Gessell, an experienced grader for Advanced Placement exams, helped hone the students' writing skills for the AP or college level and readied them for the leadership essay competitions during Summer Honors. Sinn hosted leadership discussions that analyzed recent novels, hit TV shows, and movies.

Crawford admits North Georgia was not among her college choices last spring. After Summer Honors, she views NGCSU differently.

“A lot of people just see it as a military institution. [NGCSU] is more than just that - that's just one more great thing about it.”

Crawford hopes to enter the nursing program at North Georgia in Fall 2008, citing small class sizes, proximity to home, top faculty and the ability to minor in Spanish as reasons.

"My parents and grandparents always told me I was a natural born leader," Crawford replied when asked about winning the Best Overall Leadership award, but admitted she was "totally surprised."

"This was gratifying, to win an award competing with my equals," Crawford admitted, frustration still obvious when speaking of trying out for leadership positions as a high school underclassman. "I got a chance to prove myself. I loved [winning] that award."

– From staff reports