LH to start JROTC program next spring

PEARCY -- Lake Hamilton School District is close to reaching the final goal of its 2013 millage campaign by adding a Junior ROTC program.

It would be only the second JROTC program at a Garland County public school.

"I'm real excited about this because, basically, this was the only missing piece from our millage that we had in 2013," said Superintendent Steve Anderson. "We have been able to make all the goals of that millage happen with the exception of the Junior ROTC Program, but we found out it's a lot easier to add an English or a math class than it is to involve the federal government and the Army, and all those other organizations."

The Hot Springs School District will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its JROTC program this school year, a program that Superintendent Stephanie Nehus says has been consistently successful.

Lake Hamilton's goal has always been to prepare students for life after high school, and several years ago Anderson saw that some students were going directly into the military after graduation.

"We thought that this would be a good way to support our kids that were taking a career pathway into the military, whatever branch they should choose," Anderson said. "And as we looked into this we had a large percentage of kids that were going into the Army, of course the Navy also, but we also saw that we had Navy ROTC at Hot Springs (School District), so we didn't want to copy that. So we felt like probably Army was the right avenue. We considered strongly Army and Air Force, but we've been able to make this happen and we're real excited."

Even though it will be an Army JROTC program, Anderson said he has talked with other branches of the service and they have made it clear the fundamentals students learn in any JROTC program can be applied to the other service branches.

Interest from parents, students and the community was the driving force in getting this program started, he said.

"I got an email last spring actually and I didn't actually notice that it came from within the school, but I responded to this, I thought, parent and offered for her to meet with me," Anderson said. "She came to see me and it was one of our high school students. She was very interested and she had already made up her mind that she was going to go into the military when she leaves high school and was hoping that before she gets out of high school we would be able to get this program in place. There has been interest in the community from parents and general community members excited about the idea of us being able to have this program."

Donald Westerman, high school principal, said the Department of Defense takes student population into consideration whenever granting the programs.

"I think that you have to have a population large enough to recruit a cadet corps and sustain participation. We fortunately have a large enough student body to be of interest to them," he said.

"Students who complete the JROTC program will receive career and tech ed. completer status. They'll get a certificate for that," Westerman added.

Anderson said the JROTC program's facilities have been complete since the 2017-18 school year, but funding to bring the program to campus just received approval in late July.

"When we redid the high school, our building facilities, we designed that high school to meet the specifications for the military for a JROTC program. We worked very closely with some JROTC instructors from neighboring areas. Lt. Col. (Michael) Shepherd from Arkadelphia was very helpful in giving us guidance in that, but we constructed that specifically for the JROTC program.

"However, funding for such a program requires almost an act of Congress, I guess you could say. We had to go through a lot of red tape and waiting for funding from Washington, D.C., to become available. We worked very closely with Congressman Bruce Westerman's office. He and his staff are very helpful. Also, we have to give some credit to my old friend and fraternity brother, Congressman Steve Womack. He and Congressman Westerman gave us support and guidance on getting the program."

Donald Westerman said the hope is to hire instructors by mid-September or October and be able to start the spring semester with a small cohort of students. The district and the U.S. Army are looking for a JROTC Army instructor and a senior Army instructor.

"Right now all of our kids are pretty well locked into a schedule," he said. "Most of our kids actually have a career focus identified so they're taking classes right now to achieve those things. But we're hoping that we'll be able to start with a small cohort in the spring and, of course, be able to recruit a cadet corps starting in the spring to be up and running full-bore this time next year."

According to Brian Bridges, communications coordinator for the district, the addition of JROTC is just another opportunity to set Lake Hamilton High School students up for success after graduation.

"That's from our school board, superintendent all the way down, that is our mission here. That when these kids leave, we want them to be set up to be successful," he said. "Mr. Anderson did a quote last week he wants every student to leave here set up to be productive citizens to either attend college or to be set up for a career, and this is just another way that we're able to do that."

Local on 08/19/2018

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