The Distinguished Young Women will have the opportunity to meet the leadership of Starkville when they eat breakfast with Mayor Parker Wiseman this Saturday.
"We're having a breakfast for the girls who are participating in the program," said the DYW Program Chair Susan Keith. "Distinguished Young Women is a scholarship program. Part of the process is teaching leadership skills and interviewing."
The Distinguished Young Women is a nation-wide scholarship program that promotes excellence and academics in high school girls throughout the United States. This is Starkville's DYW chapter's first mayoral breakfast.
"Distinguished Young Women is the oldest scholarship program for high school women," Keith said. "The main focus and mission is to reward excellence with high school girls and enable them to further their education. We are about leadership, scholarship, and talent. Community service also plays a big part of what we do."
Each year, the girls start their meetings in January, when they meet once a week to learn and practice a fitness routine they will perform for their competition.
"Then, we talk to the girls about our platform, which is 'be your best self,'" Keith said. "We go to the girl scouts and teach young people about being their best, and how important school is — both scholastics and being involved in your community."
Six to eight weeks after they begin practicing, there is a night of talent, where the girls perform a talent, their dance routine, and answer a question for a panel of judges. A separate panel of judges will judge their scholastics.
"The girl who gets chosen as the Distinguished Young Woman of Starkville gets chosen to go to Meridian their senior year — these are junior girls — and she gets to compete with the girls in Mississippi for the title of Distinguished Young Woman of Mississippi," Keith said. "The final program will be March 4 at Lee Hall. We have about 12 people in the community who volunteer to help, so the volunteers are really the backbone of the program."
The girls still have a month and a half to prepare for their competition.