By Carrie McLendon 

This year’s Trojan Patriot Academy kicked off its first full day with a morning of team building exercises at Butter and Egg Adventures in Troy on Monday.

The Trojan Patriot Academy is a five-night camp presented by Troy University and American Village in Montevallo, that aims to educate students on leadership, civics and U.S. history.

Dr. Jeffery Scott, Executive Director of Academic Operations for the College of Education at Troy University, shared the purpose of this program.

“The academy is really about bringing top rising high school juniors and seniors from the state of Alabama together to develop leadership skills through the lens of our founders and our founding documents,” he said.

The program includes spending two nights at Troy University, a tour of the state capital on Wednesday and three nights at American Village. Participating students are split into colonies where they will have to work with their group to solve various challenges on constitutional and government issues throughout the week.

Dr. Duane Gunn, Director of Operations of the Troy University Leadership Institute, shared his thoughts on the team building exercises at Butter and Egg Adventures and why they are so important to the program.

“What it allows them to do is not only have a great time experiencing all these different things, but they have different puzzles that they work on in the outdoors that help bring them together,” he said. “Remember, this is the first morning that all of these people have been together, so this is probably the best opportunity for them to bond as a group.”

Students participating in the academy shared their hopes of taking away valuable skills through this program.

“(I hope to) gain more leadership skills that will help me throughout my future and to get out of my comfort zone,” said Kaydence Mock.

Another student participant, Vihaan Patel, agrees as he also hopes to gain leadership and communication skills.

“Just working better with everyone, making new friends and leadership skills (is what I hope to take away),” he said.

Both students also shared that even though they had only been there a day, they had already learned new things about our country and its founders.

The leaders also shared their favorite parts of the program and some of the things they enjoy seeing most with the students.

“Our favorite part is seeing people from different walks of life, all together, learning about each other and building a commonality where they understand just because somebody is different from me, or understands things differently, that does not mean we can’t work together,” said Scott.

“To see kind of the ‘Aha moments,’ just to see them learn these things in a way that they are making friends and making connections,” said Val Crofts of the American Village.

For more information, visit the official program website at www.troy.edu/trojanpatriotacademy. For more information on Camp Butter & Egg, visit https://butterandeggadventures.com/.