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Leadership Dickson CountyAlumni -- Projects As the ranks of Leadership Dickson County graduates have grown, the alumni's reach in the community has broadened.
Too numerous to list are the individual initiatives begun as a result of exposure to the community's needs. Several graduates have put themselves forward for public office. The Dickson County Commission counts among its members several LDC alumni.
Other alumni have been elected or re-elected to countywide offices, elected to councils for some of Dickson County's six incorporated towns, elected/appointed to public boards and committees and elected to leadership roles in the numerous civic clubs that marshal Dickson County's volunteer efforts. Almost every civic initiative from Rotary to United Way has benefited from the efforts of a graduate of Leadership Dickson County.
The alumni association has had its greatest concentrated impact through major programs the group has undertaken as a corporate body. In the fall of 1997, the LDCAA was instrumental in creation of the Youth Leadership Dickson County program at Dickson County High School. Teaming with the UT Extension Service (4-H) and DCHS, the alumni group shaped a semester-long program that is part classwork, part lecture and part experiential as the youth interact with community, business and governmental leaders and learn about everything from accounting to lawmaking to the legal implications of a will. 
In 1998, Leadership alumni formed the framework of an educational partnership with the Dickson County Board of Education to bridge the gap between schools and the business community. The initiative, called Education Edge, is designed to give students the edge when it comes to being prepared for success in the work world. Leadership alumni chair subject clusters (such as manufacturing, health care, marketing, etc.), promote relationships between teachers and business leaders, help rewrite curriculum to make it more relevant, enable job shadowing, and deliver lessons tying classroom instruction to every day work experiences.
And Education Edge is growing with two additional programs being added to the partnership in the year 1999-2000. Character Counts is a nationwide partnership that Dickson County Education Edge participates in to reinforce six pillars of character in school students and the community: Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring and Citizenship. The principles are being infused into the K-12 curriculum while business leaders are promoting the ideals in their newsletters, through employee handouts, and marquees. Leadership alumni also received training to deliver the Choices curriculum, a packaged presentation in which business representatives lead classroom discussions about the importance of good choices in school and life. As a class project ,members of the LDC Class of '98-'99 sponsored and organized a career day for students at Dickson Middle School in the Spring of 1999 and repeated the activity during the Spring term, 2000. In December 1999, Leadership alumni were the spearhead in creation of the Community Foundation for Dickson County. The foundation will serve as a leader, catalyst and resource for philanthropy that will enrich the quality of life for all Dickson County citizens in such areas as social services, education, health and the environment and the arts. 
In the Spring of 2000, Leadership alumni completed construction of a ropes challenge course at Montgomery Bell State Park. The challenge course will be used to offer team development and leadership training to public and private entities seeking to improve their effectiveness.
The LDC Class of '99-'00, undertook two projects that will benefit the community for years to come. Dickson County Yesteryear is in conjunction with The Renaissance Center, class members interviewed long-time residents of Dickson County and captured their remembrances on videotape. The edited programs have been aired on the local public access cable channel 19. Class members also helped clean and rehabilitate the Humane Society of Dickson County's animal shelter, enabling the shelter to house additional animals in a more humane way. After dividing into two groups, members of the class of 2001 determined that both groups were focused on servicing needs of youth in the community. They then decided to exercise their option of combining the groups back into one and making a concerted effort to find an efficient and effective way of bringing needed services to the community. After presentations from various faculty members and concerns of the class members themselves, that class decided that the needs of youth as well as other groups in the community would probably best be served by a YMCA organization. They then contacted the YMCA of Middle Tennessee and asked them to come to a community presentation where they could detail services that could be offered and propose a plan for bringing YMCA services into the community. The members of the LDC class met with other groups in the community, such as Rotary, the Chamber of Commerce and others to enlist their support of pursuit of Y commmunity services. After completion of a community survey, class members were able to zero in on specific types of children's services that were needed and currently unavailable in the community. They also were able to determine that there would be widespread support for those service and that they could be begun in existing facilities. They agreed that the components of the plan could not be completed by graduation in May of 2001 but as a group committed to continuing the pursuit of this goal. The plan is presently on hold as other entities in the community have also become interested in the project. It is hoped that while there is a temporary delay, a successful outcome will be achieved. | ||
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© 2005 Dickson County Chamber of Commerce - 119 Highway 70 E., Dickson, TN 37055-2080 phone: (615) 446-2349 fax : (615) 441-3112 contactus@dicksoncountychamber.com |