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By Madelyn Mulryan

Junior Jordan Powell (on the right) laughs at a preview of Mean Girls before a K.A.Y. presentation Friday, Jan. 31

The annual KAY conference was held on Jan. 31 at Olathe East High School. This conference was a big deal for the club because they got to meet with other schools that have the same program. KAY club teacher sponsor Victoria Byrd-Wright explains what exactly the conference they attended entailed.

“The [purpose of the] KAY conference is to go through a couple of leadership seminars,” Byrd-Wright said. “They also talk to the presidents of all of the clubs and talk about goals that they should have for the upcoming school year, and then they start looking at ideas for fundraising or volunteer work to do in the following year.”

The conference was open to all schools in Kansas that have a KAY program so that they could discuss the immediate future of all of the clubs. For junior Ian Weatherman, he enjoyed the conference because of all of the people who attended. 

“I liked being able to see the other presidents and share with other members of other clubs and be able to share service projects they were doing and to see how we all came together to help our community,” Weatherman said. 

The community of the conference wasn’t the only thing that made the KAY conference enjoyable, for freshman Asher Clement, he found the lectures interesting. 

“My favorite part of the conference was talking to Mrs. Hillman because she is very interesting to hear speak. She’s very confident and she had a lot of useful information,” Clement said. 

Clement wasn’t the only one who took an interest in the lectures, Byrd Wright found them not only interesting but also relevant and important. 

“They did some really interesting sessions,” Byrd-Wright said. “A couple of them were about mental health, which I thought was pretty pertinent to a lot of our students, and a lot of the things a lot of students in our area are going through.”