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RYLA students share ‘the best thing ever’ to CC Rotary

From left: Rosa Gastelum, Tauna Mayhorn and Mackenzie Teeter, Charles City High School seniors, share their experience at the RYLA summer conference with the Charles City Rotary club. Press photos by Kate Hayden
From left: Rosa Gastelum, Tauna Mayhorn and Mackenzie Teeter, Charles City High School seniors, share their experience at the RYLA summer conference with the Charles City Rotary Club. Press photos by Kate Hayden
By Kate Hayden, khayden@charlescitypress.com

Charles City High School seniors Rosa Gastelum, Tauna Mayhorn and Mackenzie Teeter had never thought of themselves as public speakers before this summer. But that’s exactly what they found themselves doing during Monday’s Rotary Club meeting as they presented their Rotary Youth Leadership Award (RYLA) program experience to the club that sent them.

“Without RYLA, I don’t think I would be able to do things like this, where I speak in public. I’m naturally very shy,” Gastelum said.

Charles City High School senior Rosa Gastelum tells the Rotary Club about her experience at RYLA 2016. Press photo by Kate Hayden
Charles City High School senior Rosa Gastelum tells the Rotary Club about her experience at RYLA 2016. Press photo by Kate Hayden

The three students wore their RYLA team bandana colors with pride as they spoke about their week at the Grinnell College campus this summer. High school sophomores and juniors are eligible to apply for RYLA, Rotarian Dean Stewart said.

Each of the 26 teams were made up of 10-11 Iowa students. Those teammates left feeling like a family, the Charles City students say.

“It gave me a lot of leadership responsibility. It showed me how to be a leader, because we were forced into those situations where we would have to be the leader of our group,” Teeter said.

“I left with a family. I have friends here, but I have really good friends for life,” Mayhorn said. “I’m a pretty nice person, but I’m not super emotional. It helped me deal with how to be emotional with other people. It’s not a problem that I’m not super emotional, but you need to know how to deal with your emotions.”

“I get really happy talking about it,” Mayhorn added.

The Rotary Club has been sending students to leadership conferences for years, Stewart said. Rotary connects with students through the high school guidance office and SMART lunch, when students who have experienced the program like Teeter, Mayhorn and Gastelum speak with eligible students who are interested in the program. Rotary also sends two seventh/eighth grade students to Young RYLA, which is geared toward junior high students. Students apply to attend through their local Rotary Club.

“It takes the entire (Rotary) district to pull it off,” Stewart said. “There’s counselors that stay with the kids, and then there’s Rotary leaders.”

One of the Charles City club’s biggest budgets go to youth support initiatives, including scholarship or donations, Stewart said. During Monday’s meeting, the Rotary Club also presented a check to the Charles City eighth grade class, which is fundraising to repair the historic Riverside Cemetery chapel.

“A key facet of Rotary, whether it’s our club, district, state or world, holds similar priorities for youth,” Stewart said. “We do RYLA, we do Young RYLA … there’s very few weeks that aren’t attended by youth from our schools in some manner during our meetings.”

“We just support all things Charles City youth, whether it’s leadership conferences like this or maybe even playground equipment at Lions’ Field. We do what we can within the constraints of money and time and budget,” Stewart added.

The three Charles City RYLA students wanted club members to know just how much RYLA impacted them.

“We’d really love to thank the Rotary Club. It was the best thing of my 2016,” Teeter said.

“I don’t think they know how impactful what they did was, and I hope we can kind of give parallels to it with this PowerPoint,” Mayhorn said. “You will never be the same. It’s like the best thing ever.”

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