Eight Nease NJROTC cadets graduated from a week’s training at the Area 8, 9 & 10 Leadership Academy held at Riverside Preparatory Academy in Gainesville, Ga., on June 15.
The training brought together 288 cadets from 67 high schools in areas 8, 9 and 10, which includes Northern Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and parts of North Carolina and Tennessee. The top JROTC naval science instructors from the region directed the training, which covered leadership, precision drill, academics and physical fitness.
Chief Warrant Officer Michael Donato from the Nease NJROTC program instructed a leadership course at the academy.
Completing Leadership Academy from Nease were Dominick Cigliano, Cameron Collins, Alex Cummings, Carrie Hendricks, Annie Heiry, Audrey Jovel, Tyler Labardee and Emma Newman.
This academy is for the top cadets from each of the NJROTC units in the regions. Of the 288 graduates of the weeklong intensive training, three of the Nease cadets were individually recognized for academics (Newman), physical fitness (Collins) and Iron Woman (Jovel), and Jovel was awarded Honor Cadet.
All eight Nease cadets took on leadership roles being appointed as platoon commanders (Cigliano, Collins, Hendricks, Jovel) and squad leaders (Cummings, Heiry, Labardee, Newman).
Cummings was squad leader for Alpha 2, which won Alpha Company honor platoon and overall academics. Collins was PC for the overall honor platoon, the overall drill performance, the overall PI performance and the overall room-inspection performance.
Nease NJROTC enjoyed another successful school year (2023-24); they lead the nation in military scholarships, receiving 16 scholarships with five of them being to military service academies. They extended their drill championship to 10 years straight as the Area 10 Champions and placed sixth at Navy Drill Nationals. They also were designated as the Area 10 Most Outstanding NJROTC Unit, for 13 out of the last 16 years.
“We graduated a lot of our outstanding cadet leaders this year but are looking forward to continuing our legacy of excellence with these new Leadership Academy graduates going into the 2024-25 school year,” said Donato.
