A very special event designed to enhance student leadership at The Storm King School took place on campus on Saturday, September 1 – an interactive workshop titled Leading Your Peers. The workshop was the kick-off event in a new initiative called the Roy ’99 Leadership Series. This new series will run throughout the school year and include visitors, workshops, discussions, presentations, trips, and more. Nearly 30 student leaders including student council members, Resident Attendants (RAs), and sports team captains attended the event sporting their blue, white, and gold core value T-shirts.

 

 

According to Michael Hauser, Storm King’s History and Social Sciences Department Chair, the Roy ’99 initiative is designed to help our students develop a strong value for leadership and service in their daily lives. “You are all here because you were chosen by your peers to be leaders within our school community. What we hope to achieve today is to have you build on your innate leadership qualities and begin to apply them while thinking about your futures,” explained Mr. Hauser to the students.

 

 

The series is named for Patrick Roy ‘99, a Storm King alumnus and young Naval recruit, who was killed in the line of duty while serving on the USS Cole during a terrorist attack in Yemen in 2001, less than a year and a half after graduating. A natural born leader, Roy’s life and service are commemorated each year at Storm King on October 12 by placing a wreath on Memorial Rock.

The 90-minute workshop began with a short presentation by Mr. Hauser, who told the students the story of Patrick Roy. Next, Student Council President Steven Muller ’19 welcomed Mr. Tony Burgess, CEO of the Cornwall Leadership Institute, the workshop’s guest speaker.

 

 

Following a lively pep talk, Mr. Burgess engaged the students in a series of interactive discussions and written exercises which encouraged them to pinpoint their ideas about leadership, discuss them with one another, and present them to the group. The Smidt Conference Room was filled with lively chatter as the students collaborated to complete the various exercises. By the end of the session, all the students who attended agreed that the session helped them to determine what they need to do to be even better leaders both at school and in their lives. To conclude the afternoon, the students presented Mr. Burgess with a Storm King baseball cap to thank him for his help.

 

 

A lifelong leader himself, Mr. Burgess graduated from West Point in 1990 and served as an Army officer for 24 years. While serving, he helped create a peer-to-peer learning network for junior officers and took part in a number of cutting-edge leadership development programs. As the co-founder and director of a leadership center at West Point, he has taught leadership to special operations leaders and coached Harvard MBA students in the Authentic Leadership Development elective at the Harvard Business School.

Mr. Burgess is the first of several important speakers that will participate in the Roy Leadership Series at Storm King.