Montwood High School hosted the first Officer Leadership Conference, 'ElevateED: Rising Leaders In CTE' on Nov. 28 at the school.
The conference's goal was to provide students who are leaders in various organizations on campus with valuable insights and guidance on becoming effective leaders.
"We wanted to give students the experience of actually going to a conference like in the corporate world when you are an adult," said April Hall, a marketing teacher at Montwood. "So, we wanted them to hear from people in the industry who are experts."
Esteemed leaders from various businesses and industries, including the athletics field, finance, and military, delivered presentations and engaged in discussions with students in breakout rooms.
The event was a unique opportunity for students to learn from accomplished professionals and gain inspiration for their own leadership journeys.
Amelia Guzman, a senior at Montwood and managing editor for the yearbook, hopes to apply what she learned at the conference to become a better leader within her school organizations.
"Today at the leadership conference, we are learning about morals, leadership, character integrity, and so much more," Guzman said. "We have guest speakers who are current leaders in their positions, and they are here to help us because we are in leadership positions in our school organizations."
The conference featured 120 students from DECA, Business Professionals of America (BPA), culinary arts, and more CTE programs, a swag bag for attendees, and keynote speaker Alonso Ruelas, an El Paso Baseball Hall of Famer and Socorro High School graduate.
Andrea Lopez, a senior at Montwood who assisted with the event, was happy to help with the inception of the conference in hopes that she will leave those students following behind her in the right path toward becoming tomorrow's leaders. "We want these kids, these leaders, to learn and grow so they can in turn, invest and give back to our school," Lopez said. "We plan to use this experience for our DECA competition in January, where we will present how to plan and coordinate events, so our group is learning from this (event), too."