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Learning the mysteries of leadership
By JOHN BALZ, Times Staff Writer
CROSS CREEK -- Brian Kelly ended up in the nation's capital on a momentous week. The president ordered an invasion of Iraq. The nation's terror level ticked upward to orange. A tobacco farmer, angry at the government over subsidies, drove his tractor into a pond near the Washington monument. Brian, a sixth-grader at Florida College Academy in Temple Terrace, was among 96 middle-schoolers from around the country who traveled to Washington to take part in a leadership conference, and, unknowingly, witness history first hand. A math teacher nominated 12-year-old Brian of Cross Creek to attend the Junior National Young Leaders Conference, sponsored by the nonprofit Congressional Youth Leadership Council, which has been sending students to Washington for 18 years. His grandmother agreed to foot the bill. Brian, who hopes to end up in architecture one day, not government, was the only student from Tampa to make the March trip. He spent the week before the trip studying up on the life of Secretary of State Colin Powell. The self-described U.S. history buff spent about a quarter of his time seeing such sites as Arlington National Cemetery, the U.S. Capitol Building and the Marine Corps war memorial. The grandson of a Marine who fought in World War II, Brian said the statue of the Marines fighting to plant an American flag at Iwo Jima had the greatest impact on him. The rest of the time, the middle-schoolers honed their leadership skills through a series of workshops. In one, they tied themselves up in a human knot and relied on others to untangle them. "I've got the ability to be a leader," Brian said. "I just have to work on my speeches." Brian said he didn't have the chance to meet representatives from the Florida delegation, but instead shook hands with an Alabama representative who said he had a daughter in Arbor Greene. Asked if he would be up for another trip to Washington, he responded, "The first chance I get." -- John Balz can be reached at (813) 269-5313 or at balz@sptimes.com
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