Event for youth focuses on ethics

Ron Schutz is always looking for a new challenge. As the chairman of youth leadership and vocational services for the Liberty Lake Centennial Rotary Club, he wanted to do something different – something that would have a life-changing effect on tomorrow’s leaders.

As a result, Rotary District 5080, led by the Liberty Lake Rotary with the assistance of Gonzaga University’s Ethics Institute, has planned the Youth Leadership Summit on Ethics.

High school juniors and seniors and their counselors are invited to attend the Oct. 6-7 event.

Attendees will participate in panel discussions, facilitated by more than 20 community leaders. Topics include ethics in law; medicine; media and entertainment; government; business; environment; sports and competition, and computers and the Internet.

In addition to door prizes such as laptop computers, MP3 players and digital cameras, local sponsors are providing about $50,000 in scholarships for student attendees.

“We may continue raising money, perhaps as much as a $100,000, and I’d like to see that half of that is for the kids who attend this conference, provided that they go back and talk about what they learned and how they applied it,” Schutz said.

The other half would be set aside for nominations at large for kids who have shown examples of good decision-making and courage.

Speakers for the leadership summit include Tom Flick, a former NFL quarterback; the Rev. Robert Spitzer, GU’s president; and Tim McGuire, chairman of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University.

Applications are available at area Rosauers stores and online at www.leadershipsummits.org.

Space is limited to the first 250 applicants. The deadline to register is Sept. 27.