Four attend Lott Leadership Institute at Ole Miss
Columbia was well-represented at the prestigious Trent Lott Leadership Institute at Ole Miss this summer, sending four students.
Riley Grace Howell and Ladner Watts of Columbia Academy and Luke Miciello and Mamie Herring of Columbia High School attended the programs in Oxford.
Miciello, Herring and Howell took part in the Lott Institute for Rising Ninth Graders, for which just 80 students are selected from about 500 applicants within Mississippi, and Watts participated in the 12th Grade Lott Leadership Institute, which chooses 50 rising seniors from some 800 applicants throughout the Southeast.
Watts said they were able to show people from larger communities like Jackson and Oxford what Columbia has to offer.
“To be able to represent the small culture but very active culture we have down here was very fun,” he said.
Schools nominate up to five of their students and then those students must apply for the institute and are selected based on academic and leadership credentials.
The ninth graders took a two-week course about the history of the civil rights movement called “Problems in American Democracy” and read two books “Animal Farm” and “Mississippi Trial, 1955.” They earned a half Carnegie unit credit for completing the class and also had an opportunity to visit the Jackson metro area, touring the C Spire headquarters, Governor’s Mansion and Civil Rights Museum. The mayor of Oxford also met with them, giving insights on the political process.
It was a rigorous summer as they also did a lot of preparation work online before the course started that included making Powerpoint presentations, reading articles and watching videos.
Miciello, the son of Jeremy and Terri Miciello, said he had lots of fun during the two-week session. They lived in the dorms at Ole Miss, and he said it was good preparation for what college will be like.
Herring, the daughter of Simon and Angel Herring, said the program gave them a taste of what college and helped them learn responsibility. She said they learned to form their own opinions as their professors didn’t tell them what to think.
Howell, the daughter of Jason and Kathy Howell, said she gained better leadership skills and a better understanding of how government works. She made a lot of friends, saying they became close to everyone in the group as they spent their time together in the classroom and in the dorms afterward.
“I was ready to wake up and go to class when I got home,” she said.
The 12th-grade program is a month long and includes a week in Washington D.C. in addition to the time in Oxford. Watts, the son of Todd and Kellie Watts, took two full college courses – political science and speech – for which he received six hours of college credit after completing them.
He said they took classes daily from 8 a.m. to noon and then had free time on campus.
“We had student IDs. We were practically college students for a month. That was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed that,” he said.
While in Washington they met with current U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith and the chief of staff of U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo. Watts, who said he’s considering going to either Ole Miss or Mississippi State, said the experience gave insights into how to achieve possible career goals related to public policy and gave connections that could help with getting an internship on Capitol Hill.
They also spent time with lobbyists from organizations like the Airlines of America and Google as well as the institute’s namesake, Trent Lott, who represented Mississippi in Congress from 1973 to 2007 and is now a lobbyist.
“He’s very bipartisan and you don’t see that much anymore,” Watts said. “It was really cool to see his perspective of how he tried to achieve bipartisanship when he was in office.”
Pictured Above: Ladner Watts and Riley Grace Howell of Columbia Academy, above left, and Mamie Herring and Luke Miciello of Columbia High School attended the Trent Lott Leadership Institute at Ole Miss this summer. While staying on the Oxford campus, they took college courses and learned more about the political process. | Photos by Charlie Smith
