As a 2000 graduate of The Center for Rural Development’s Rogers Scholars youth program, Lisa Hibbs learned how important it is to set goals and work toward reaching those goals. Her goals became pursuing a career in teaching, working with young children, and following a lifelong passion for children’s literature in hopes of some day [...]

After graduating from the second and final week of The Center for Rural Development’s 2009 Rogers Scholars summer youth program, the region’s future business leaders and entrepreneurs have challenged to go out and make their home communities in Southern and Eastern Kentucky better places to live. The final 30 of the 60 rising high school [...]

Rogers Scholars on Thursday toured the John F. Kennedy Space Center via a live, interactive videoconference with NASA officials. The videoconference—presented by NASA’s Digital Learning Network and brought to Scholars by The Center for Rural Development’s CenterNET2 videoconferencing network—gave them a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to prepare a spacecraft for liftoff. Earlier in [...]

Playing in the 1972 Olympic Games was both the best and worst experience of Kenny Davis’ life. Davis, a Wayne County native and All-American basketball from Georgetown College, shared his recollections of being a part of perhaps the most controversial game in basketball history–and witnessing events surrounding one of the worst atrocities in Olympic history–with [...]

Rogers Scholars discovered just how important communication skills are as they participated in a leadership exercise that split them into teams and had them assembling Lego-block models based only on the instructions of their leaders. In the exercise, Scholars worked in three teams to try to fit the Lego pieces together in such a way [...]

Rogers Scholars worked on leadership and team-building skills on Monday at the Team Leadership Center in Wayne County. Under the direction of lead facilitator Norrie Wake and his support team, Scholars participated in a series of hands-on leadership and team-building exercises. In one of the exercises, Scholars learned what it takes to work as a [...]

The second—and final—class of 2009 Rogers Scholars arrived at The Center for Rural Development in Somerset on Sunday to begin a week of activities that Lonnie Lawson, president and CEO of The Center, promises to be “a life-changing experience.” In a welcome address to Scholars and their parents, Lawson said the Rogers Scholars program has [...]

Thirty high school students from Southern and Eastern Kentucky are better prepared to be the region’s next generation of future leaders after developing their leadership skills at Rogers Scholars summer youth program. The first class of 2009 Rogers Scholars completed the program last week and received certificates of completion—making graduates eligible to receive college scholarships [...]

Rogers Scholars on Thursday toured the John F. Kennedy Space Center via a live, interactive videoconference with NASA officials. The videoconference—presented by NASA’s Digital Learning Network and brought to Scholars by The Center for Rural Development’s award-winning CenterNET2 statewide videoconferencing network—gave them a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to prepare a vehicle for liftoff [...]

Rogers Scholars began working as teams in their program majors on Wednesday coming up with storylines for short, student-produced films, learning more about engineering in a lightning-speed game of Jeopardy, and developing their computer skills. During the week, Scholars receive 12 hours of instructional training taught by professionals in their respective major. Instruction is provided [...]