Jeffersonville JROTC celebrates two cadets receiving awards

Erik Hackman, The Evening News and the Tribune, Jeffersonville, Ind.
·3 min read

May 19—JEFFERSONVILLE — Jeffersonville High School's Air Force JROTC program has been named a Distinguished Unit with Merit for the 2022-23 school year.

Along with being named a Distinguished Unit with Merit, two students received awards for the efforts they put into the program.

Cadet Lieutenant Colonel Kayleigh Hicks, a senior at Jeff High, received the Louisville Armed Forces Committee Award as the Air Force JROTC Senior Outstanding Cadet in the Kentuckiana Area. This award is given to the top cadet based on academic performance, leadership and community service.

Cadet Major Cyanne Wimberley, a junior at Jeff High, received the Air Force Association and Air Force Leadership Award as the top junior cadet in Indiana. For this award the cadet's community service, extra-curricular activities, PT test scores and Leadership were taken in consideration.

"All I did was just be active in the Corps," said Wimberley. "I showed a bunch of leadership qualities, I just put myself out there."

The average amount of community service hours that the JROTC wants the cadets to have for the whole school year is 12 hours. Wimberley was able to put in 70 hours of community service this school year.

Some community services that Wimberley did for JROTC were to help clean the cafeteria at the school after lunch, volunteer at Loaves and Fishes and help at Golden Corral on Veterans Day where she fed veterans.

"One of my favorite events was the Vietnam Veterans reunion," Hicks said. "They had an auction, so we helped them auction off the stuff and then had dinner with them."

In receiving her award, Hicks had to do some volunteering as well as exceed in her unit inspections.

The students in the program have a variety of reasons to want to join the JROTC. Hicks and Wimberley joined because they both had family members who encouraged them to go to it.

"I joined ROTC because I had a friend talk about how her brother did it and she talked about it like it was really enjoyable," said Johana Maldonado, a junior at Jeff High. "I decided to give it a try since it sounded like fun."

When she first joined, Maldonado started off by only helping with the community service through the program. Later on, she started doing the extracurriculars and got more involved with the program.

What advice would these three students give to incoming students who are thinking about joining JROTC?

"A lot of people think that it's more of a military class and that it's really strict," Hicks said. "I would say that it's a really good class to take, it definitely teaches you a lot more life skills rather than stuff you really wouldn't use in the real world... it really teaches you how to become a better person."

"I think if you're trying to make the most out of it, just join the extracurriculars," said Maldonado. "You meet so many new cadets and you make so many new friends... as enjoyable as just the classroom is and everything we do inside, it's even more enjoyable staying after school."

"Even for the cadets that can't come after school and everything, or just don't want to do the after-school activities, there are things like field trips and we even put some of those after-school activities in class," Wimberley said. "It gives them a taste of everything, they get to enjoy it even if though they're not able to come."