Rotarian Volunteer Counselor - Suzanne Richter

Name: Suzanne Richter
Number of years of RYLA service: 2
Your School / Rotary District: 6080

Favorite RYLA memory: The trip into the very muddy woods, during which all of us slipped, sloshed, and wriggled in the mud.

Favorite quote or saying about service and/or leadership:  Together there's nothing we can't do.

Rotarian Volunteer Counselor - Cathy Libey

Name: Cathy Libey 

Number of years of RYLA service: 2



Your School / Rotary District: District 6080 




Favorite RYLA memory : Observing the ROPES course and watching how all of the students, while still strangers, were bound together by encouragement from each other. 





Favorite quote or saying about service and/or leadership:

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
- John Quincy Adams 


Prof. Counselor - Tom Wirtz

Name: Tom Wirtz 


Number of years of RYLA service: 1

Your School / Rotary District: Van Horn High School/ Independence School District

Favorite RYLA memory:

Favorite quote or saying about service and/or leadership:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”
- Martin Luther King


Rotarian Volunteer Counselor - Jerry Venters

Name: Jerry Venters

Number of years of RYLA service:  3 years as Rotarian counselor and 1 year as a member of the statewide RYLA committee; helped draft the guidelines to establish the statewide RYLA Academy

Your School / Rotary District:  District 6040 

Favorite RYLA memory:  Getting run over by a hard-charging team of 10 RYLArians in the Amazing Race!  (This might not be the favorite, but it's certainly the most memorable!)

Favorite quote or saying about service and/or leadership: 
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
-Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist

Prof. Counselor - Colleen Schieber

Name: Colleen Schieber

Number of years of RYLA service: 2

Your School / Rotary District: Pleasant Lea Middle School in Lee's Summit

Favorite RYLA memory: Sharing this experience with fabulous people! Watching our young and energetic group work together on their different tasks and see them emerge as a cohesive group was awesome!  They will make waves out in the world and will do great things!

Favorite quote or saying about service and/or leadership:

It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test. Lou Holz

Prof. Counselor - Jamie Hatfield

Name: 
Jamie Hatfield
Number of years of RYLA service: 
4 


Your School / Rotary District (whichever applies to you): Campbell Middle School/Lee’s Summit 

Favorite RYLA memory: 


Watching my team of Rylarians leave at 8 am for Scattering Forks as complete strangers, encouraging each other through a variety of challenges for an entire day, and finding themselves returning to the Academy at 4 pm as a team….a family! It is a day that transforms lives. Every year I am blown away by the metamorphosis.

Favorite quote or saying about service and/or leadership: 
We are too great for small dreams. 



Prof. Counselor - Jeremy Bonnesen

Name: Jeremy Bonnesen

Number of years of RYLA service: 8 years

Your School / Rotary District: Lee's Summit School District

Favorite RYLA memory:
When students from all over Missouri raised thousands upon thousands of pairs of shoes for children in countries where that is a luxury!

Favorite quote or saying about service and/or leadership:

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.
- John Maxwell

Prof. Counselor Maureen Woods

Name: Maureen Woods
Number of years of Rotary service: 1
Your School/Organization (if you are a prof. counselor): Raytown South High School
Your favorite RYLA memory:
Favorite quote about service and/or leadership:
"Life is a place of service. Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness." ~ Leo Tolstoy

Rotarian Volunteer Counselor: Andrea O'Brien

Name: Andrea O'Brien
Number of years of RYLA service: 1
Your Rotary District: 6040 (Kirksville Noon Rotary Club)
Your favorite RYLA memory (if you are returning): 1. Being the parent of a RYLA participant during the closing ceremony, and seeing how excited my son was about what he had done the previous few days. His group leaders told my husband and me about how amazing of a son we had, and how he had stepped up to help others through some of the difficult exercises throughout the week. I was very proud to not only be the parent of a RYLA participant, but also to be part of Rotary!!!
Favorite quote about service and/or leadership:

The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
 - Ralph Nader
Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.
- James Baldwin
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants.
- Isaac Newton

Professional Counselor - Greg Swaggart

Name- Greg Swaggart

Number of years Rotary service- 1

School- Lee's Summit West High School

Favorite quote- "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" -John F. Kennedy, inauguration speech

Director of RYLA - Valerie Anderson

Name: Valerie Anderson
Number of years of Rotary service: 7
Your Rotary District: North Kansas City Rotary Club, District 6040
Your favorite RYLA memory: hearing the service stories of what RYLAians are doing AFTER they go home 
Favorite quote about service and/or leadership: “If not me, then who?  If not now, then when?"

Camp Photographer: Aubrey Anderson

Name: Aubrey Anderson
Number of years of RYLA service: 1
Your School: 2010 Alumni of Staley High School
Your favorite RYLA memory: The creative names teams come up with

Camp Photographer, Camp Videos creator & Website:
 Michael Russell

Name: Michael Russell
Number of years of RYLA service: 1
Your School: Lee's Summit High School

Favorite RYLA memory: Playing the nightly videos we've created and watching everyone react to them.
Favorite quote: "Good Vibes are Contagious."

Audio-Visual Director, Emcee,:

Rich Linden