On Friday, January 11, GHS welcomed guest speaker Ted Wiese of Wiese Training and Development for his annual leadership program. Over 80 high school students attended this three hour activity.
Ted Wiese, a Caramel, IN resident, has traveled to a plethora of schools all around Indiana and its neighboring states, spreading the importance of leadership to the students. Through his Keynote presentations and workshops, students leave the program more confident in themselves saying, “I feel great!” as Wiese’s slogan goes.
One of the many workshops provided included “The Right’s Left Game,” which was a story containing the directions “left” and “right.” Every time a direction was spoken, the students moved seats until the end of the story and had to end up where they started in the beginning. Wiese used this exercise to keep students on their feet and remain quick thinkers, for any situation they may be put in that needs quick yet practical decision making. Sophomore Morgan Schoon said this activity was very beneficial for her team because if one person made a mistake, the other team members could help fix that mistake.
Wiese’s biggest and most time consuming activity involved the students working in their group to write a parody of a song that motivated the audience to be better leaders. Senior Chris Albanese’s group performed a parody to Michael Jackson’s Thriller which featured choreography like dance moves by Pantherettes. “This was one of my favorite activities of the entire program because it was fun to work together with my group to create this performance.” said Albanese. Junior Connor Begeske’s group performed their rendition to Anna Kendrick’s “Cup Song” and used solo cups to bring the song to life while singing. Begeske notes that it was a bit of a task trying to recreate the song using mostly leadership terms. However, he said that working together with great people to get the job done made participating a great time.
GHS students always look forward to Wiese coming and speaking every year. Thanks to NHS sponsoring the event, Wiese will be at GHS for many years to come.