 The Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps at Bemidji High School celebrated a successful year with a ball over the weekend. Our own Cherelle Moore tells us how the program is creating leaders for this week's Golden Apple. The students are part of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps at Bemidji High School have a lot of reasons to be proud of themselves and a few of those reasons were spotlighted at their 14th annual military ball. Really the whole military ball is almost like putting on a wedding and these are high school students that are kind of organizing and planning an entire wedding by themselves. I guide my subordinates to work on projects such as getting donors for it. Really it's a wide variety. The students have been planning this event since December covering every detail from the glassware and the food to the venue and programming. Really an honor to be able to work with all these people and to be able to be up at the head table and claim some of this really hard work for my own. The work shown at the ball is only a fraction of what the JROTC members do. The JROTC program is student led so they teach a lot of the courses to their peers. The program also focuses on community service and leadership. When I came in here I was kind of shy, just kind of hoping for an easy A which wasn't the case. I've worked really hard for my ranks. One of the most misunderstood aspects of JROTC that it's kind of a path for the military while there's very little military that we actually teach it's just a structure where we can really put the kids into dynamic situations in order to teach leadership. It's applicable anywhere I go from working at McDonald's to college life even to working moving on into a career. It's also been a great tool for enhancing myself physically becoming stronger. For all the training to be better than they were the day before, the students naturally get close to each other, making this celebration all the more special. It really is a second family. It's a place if you're upset you can go and there will be people for you. You can get so far in this class and so far as a person in the community which is what this program is about it's about getting out in the community and being a great person. Reporting in Bemidji with this week's Golden Apple, Shraamor, Lakeland News. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.