Tori Booker took the lessons she learned from the Four Star Leadership conference she attended two years ago and immediately began using them at Altus High School and now at Oklahoma State University.
The conference was named after four-star U.S. Army General Tommy Franks, of Hobart. Franks was the United States general who led the attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan in response to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon in 2001. He also oversaw the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Using a life full of leadership lessons, Franks and friends established the five-day conference for 70 high-performing high school students around the globe. The 2021 conference will be held July 11-15 at Oklahoma Christian University in Oklahoma City.
Participants will meet and engage with national and international leaders of all types including elected officials, dignitaries and championship-level athletes as well as travel to several halls of leadership during the week. In addition, students will be confronted with practical leadership and ethical scenarios and then challenged to address them individually in a persuasive speech and writing competition as well as collaboratively in an ethics bowl competition.
Booker, who graduated from Altus High School in May 2020, said she was privileged to attend the leadership conference two years ago.
“It was very neat to connect with people from all over the world,” she said. “It was a good experience to learn from people of different backgrounds. They (conference organizers) tried to push us to be our best selves.”
Booker took the lessons she learned and quickly applied them back at Altus High School and Oklahoma State University where she attends classes as a freshman.
“It gave me the motivation to find an issue in my hometown and develop a community service project,” she said.
Booker developed a service project that centered on agriculture. She took the project to Oklahoma 4-H Clubs and now promotes it at the Stillwater Chamber of Commerce where she is a junior partner.
The service project seeks to broaden the understanding of agriculture among youngsters, typically third through sixth graders, so they can understand the overall importance of agriculture. In Booker’s service project explanation, she wrote, “It is a common issue to have youth (grade school) not understanding where their food comes from. The food and fiber system is not taught in or readily available in school curriculum today. Coming from a mostly rural area, it, saddens me that youths do not have this knowledge and are unaware of the advanced importance agriculture has on our society and world as a whole.”
Booker wants youngsters to understand the origins of their food and clothing.
“Through my research thus far an example would be learning about the major commodities of cotton, wheat, cattle and calves, sorghum, and canola,” Booker wrote about her 2019 service project. “Students will be able to identify the products made from these agriculture commodities. Cotton not only can be used for the simple making of jeans, underwear, and socks, but for tape, high quality paper, fishnets and coffee filters. Cattle and calves are ranked number one among Oklahoma’s most valuable agriculture commodities. The fat of a pig or cow can be used for the making of crayons, and the bones can be used for making chalk. Every part of an animal is a valuable resource.”
Booker received high marks for her service project presentations in the Altus public schools.
Conference details
The Four Star Leadership conference is valued at more than $4,000 per student and is offered at no cost to selected students, including expenses, travel and programming.
“Four Star Leadership is a one-of-a-kind program focusing on the development of today’s students into tomorrow’s leaders,” said Gen. Franks. “The program provides selected high school students invaluable leadership lessons through teambuilding exercises, spontaneous problem solving and coaching in persuasive speaking and writing.”
Program curriculum is designed around the four core principles of the four stars of leadership as outlined by Franks: character, common vision, communication and caring. Attendees will have the opportunity to earn more than $30,000 in scholarships, learn life-changing concepts and skills and receive endorsements and recommendations to future positions of leadership.
Applications and nominations for Four Star Leadership 2021 are being accepted through April 19. School advisors, coaches, scouting leaders and directors of youth programs are encouraged to nominate young leaders in their organization. For more information on the program, to nominate a student or to apply, visit FourStarLeader.com.
For more information on Four Star Leadership visit FourStarLeader.com or call (580) 726-5900.