Two Lebanon High School juniors have been chosen by the Lebanon Rotary Club to attend the Rotary Youth Leadership Award (RYLA) camp in June.

Megan Vorderstrasse and Tarah Cleveland, both 17, were selected by a committee of Rotarians from among several applicants, based on their leadership, personal values, intelligence and integrity.

The week-long camp will be held at Camp Cascade near Lyons. The objective is to reward outstanding youth by recognizing them as leaders and offering them incentives and education to further their leadership ability. Outstanding young people from different high schools, backgrounds and experience are brought together to work, learn and discuss the challenges of their generation.

The cost of participation, $400 per camper, is paid by the club, with no cost to the participants for transportation, food, lodging and camp activities.

Vorderstrasse is the daughter of Brian and Dawn Vorderstrasse and has a brother, Benjamin, 12.

She applied for RYLA because she thought &#8220it would be a really cool opportunity to gain leadership experience and meet other kids who are leaders."

She runs hurdles and competes in the triple jump and long jump on the LHS track team, and is captain of the school's women's soccer team. She is involved in Students Today Aren't Ready for Sex (STARS), the National Honor Society and her church youth group.

After high school she plans to go to college with a pre-med major. As a step toward her goal of being a pediatrician, she is a clerical volunteer in the Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital urgent care department. She is a student in the Living Systems Academy at LHS, which includes health careers courses.

Cleveland, the daughter of Alisa Ranger, has two younger sisters, Kyla, 10 and Kyra, 11.

The camp was brought to her attention by a teacher. She looked into it and applied because she thought it would be fun. Her goal is to some day be a community leader - a mayor, a governor, and maybe even president.

In the meantime, she is in the LHS Social Systems Academy, plans to go to a four-year college and get a degree in teaching art or science.

As part of the National Honor Society, she has volunteered at the Soup Kitchen and helped clean up in neighborhoods. She also volunteers for school-sponsored events. She babysits for families she knows and has her own T-shirt business, with T-shirts marketed by word of mouth through friends and with her business cards.

Rotarians, as leaders in their fields, honor and promote leadership in today's youth through many programs. Internationally, RYLA is one such program. Locally, Rotary honors two juniors from LHS and one from East Linn Christian Academy each month as Junior Rotarians. The students attend weekly Rotary meetings and report on activities at their schools.