Roosevelt High School student represents Jobs for America’s Graduates in D.C.

Roosevelt High School sophomore Brody Stenger was one of four students to represent South Dakota last week at the Jobs for America’s Graduates National Student Leadership Academy in Washington D.C.

Stenger, 15, is the president of JAG at RHS in Sioux Falls. He and three other students from across the state − Preston Rosane from Martin, Melina Shields from Presho and April Hollingsworth from Wagner − were selected as delegates for the Academy held Dec. 1-3.

JAG is a leadership development and career exploration program for middle and high school students with more than 300 student members in South Dakota and 68,000 members nationwide. The Academy served as a capstone leadership experience for state Career Association officers and select chapter officers.

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While in D.C., Stenger and the other students received leadership training, visited with members of Congress, participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, and enjoyed a Twilight Monument Tour, according to a press release from the South Dakota Department of Education.

Stenger and his peers met with Rep. Dusty Johnson, Sen. Mike Rounds and Sen. John Thune on their trip. He said they talked to the group about how they can improve and expand the JAG program throughout the state, and how they could help get the word out about what JAG is. Thune tweeted about the meeting.

JAG South Dakota state director Beth Schneider said in a press release that the Academy is a tremendous opportunity for students to develop leadership skills and visit distinguished leaders in D.C.

“It’s also a chance for these young leaders to advocate for community, educational, and workforce issues that matter to them,” Schneider said.

The best part of the trip was meeting people from all across the U.S., Stenger said.

“We’ve met people from Alabama, Florida, all sorts of places. We’re still staying connected,” he said. “We all talk about things we’ve been doing. It’s fun getting to know new people and making new connections.”

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The JAG class was added to Stenger’s schedule in February for this school year, he said. If he hadn’t been added to the class roster and going to the class every day this school year, “I would have been missing out on a lot, because it has given me a lot of opportunities,” he said.

Some of those opportunities include weekly visits to area businesses, including First Premier Bank last week; team building activities; and, once students turn 16, they can start job shadowing, a form of on-the-job training in which a student closely follows an employee while they work to gain career experience.

These different experiences have helped Stenger and his classmates explore different career fields and build connections with people in a variety of industries, he said.

After high school, Stenger said he wants to go into agriculture. The career path inspired him since he spent many of his summers out on his grandparents’ corn, soybean, wheat, oat and sorghum farm and cattle ranch in Winner, working with his family.

“I never thought there would be so many different things you could do, and so many things that people do to help the agriculture community,” he said. “I like watching the process of hard work. You go out there and plant your field, fertilize your field, test your soil, then you get to the end where you harvest the crop. It’s like, this is the product of what I started, so that’s cool.”

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Sioux Falls student represents Jobs for America’s Graduates in D.C.