RYLA -- Abigail Colestock

 

          District change:  Mike Payson, a Spokane Valley Rotarian, has stepped down from his post as an assistant governor for District 5080, President Nancy Hanson announced.  Payson’s area included the Spokane North Rotary Club.

 

 

            The Rotary Youth Leadership Award camp often is described as life-changing and North Central grad Abigail Colestock told the club August 8 that was true for her.

 

            “It was one of the more transformational experiences, like, in my life so far,” said “Ab” Colestock.

 

            Member Chris Lynch, introducing Colestock, said she has known the co-valedictorian, a friend of Lynch’s grand-daughter, “since she was in the 7^th grade.”  She said Colestock participated in NC’s famed science program “and had as many advanced placement credits as anyone she knew.

 

            The RYLA experience, Colestock said, “was like a crash course in leadership dynamics.”

 

            She discussed three topical categories: “expanding comfort zones, ethics and goal-setting.”

 

            About her comfort zone, Colestock said, “I was super hesitant to go in the first place. I thought all these extroverts are going to eat me alive. But I had a blast.

 

            “Getting to know the other people was one of the most interesting and fascinating things,” she said.  About 30 young adults attended the RYLA session.

 

            “Now I find myself talking to people in the grocery store line or to passersby when I walk around the Gonzaga campus,” Colestock said.

 

            Of the ethics topic, she said, “I’ve always considered myself to be an ethical person, but it was mostly tied to the classroom.  Like, I am passionate against plagiarizing.”

 

            RYLA instilled applying ethics “in everyday life, everything you do.  And it helped me conform to ethical standards,” she said, with a nod to the banner listing Rotary’s 4-way test of ethics.  “One group activity involved writing 10 ethical commandments for yourself,” Colestock said.

 

            The camp helped change her mind about future goals, she said.  “I wanted to be an astronaut, but I abandoned that in high school.  My new plan is to become a doctor and work with Doctors Without Borders.”

 

            She said RYLA participants were asked to write 100 goals for the next five years.  “I had 50 written right away,” Colestock said, adding, “RYLA ignited a passion to make the world a better place.”  Her goals included practicing medicine in a foreign country, perhaps as part of GU’s Jesuit Corps, and climbing a notable mountain.

 

            Colestock shared slides of camp activities, showing the U-shaped group meeting sessions and the fun activities, including one camper’s Donald Trump impression and a girl wearing a fake moustache as “an opportunity for improvement” penalty for

infractions like being late to 7 a.m. daily breakfasts.

 

            Colestock even introduced club members to a new term – “Rylarians.”  Next step for those continuing with Rotary is to join an area Rotoract Club.            

 

 

          Bulletin editors: Chuck Rehberg and Sandy Fink

 

 

          Program coordinator: Brad Stark