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Liberty student excited to share her summer experiences
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Liberty High School junior Katherine Daniels attended the Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership Conference in June. The international event was in Chicago and brought together young people from 13 countries to learn about teamwork, innovation, service and leadership.
By Danny Restivo
LIBERTY
A lot of students dread the first day of school. For Katherine Daniels, it’s an opportunity to share her summer experience.
“I definitely want to talk to [my fellow students] about it,” she said.
The junior at Liberty High School attended the Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership Conference in Chicago. According to its website, “the conference is designed to inspire and develop our global community of youth and volunteers to a life dedicated to leadership and innovation.”
Katherine was one of two students representing northern Ohio at the international conference, which was in June. The seven-day event took place at Loyola University, where young people from 13 countries collaborated on ideas for a better tomorrow. Some of the activities included innovation, leadership and community-awareness projects.
The conference was the idea of former Broadway and television star Hugh O’Brian, an actor who is best known for his role as Wyatt Earp in “The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp” on ABC from 1955 to 1961. The former Marine started HOBY Leadership in 1958. Now the 89-year-old wants to show young people how they can make a positive impact on the world.
“Unfortunately, a very small number of our young people seem to attract most of the news,” O’Brian said in a statement from the HOBY website. “It is time we accent the positive — pat the good guys and gals on the back — let them know there are rewards for being responsible members of the community.”
Katherine admits she didn’t know who O’Brian was before she participated in the conference, but his appearance at the closing ceremonies made an impression on her.
“He spoke about his life and how we are the future leaders of tomorrow, and it is up to us to make the world a better place,” said Daniels. “I thought it was so cool.”
Besides O’Brian’s speech, Katherine said the international environment was “really cool” for a 17-year-old. During the conference, Katherine worked with students from Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.
“It was great being with people from all different countries and have one goal of making the world a better place,” Katherine said.
Daniels returns to school Aug. 27. Although she wants to make the world a better place, she’s focusing on her academic goals now.
“I’m going to try and get all A’s and narrow down what I want to do,” she said.