08/29/16 – HYPE Student Leadership Conference This Week in Lexington, Louisville

August 29, 2016 2016-2017 News Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 29, 2016

The 16th Annual KHSAA HYPE Student Leadership Conference will take place this week in Lexington and Louisville. The conference is a free service provided by the Association for student-athletes to learn teamwork exercises and sportsmanship initiatives, and discuss current issues.

The first half of the conference will be held Tuesday, Aug. 30 at the Lexington Convention Center, followed by the second seminar on Wednesday, Aug. 31 at the Ramada Plaza Louisville Hotel & Conference Center.

Assisting with this year’s conference will be a group of six student-athletes that represented the KHSAA at the NFHS National Student Leadership Summit in July: Melisa Comertpay (Muhlenberg County), Korbin Florer (Bracken County), Luke Huffman (DuPont Manual), Lauren Shraut (Holy Cross (Lou.)), Keeton Thornsberry (Holy Cross (Lou.)) and Danielle Wethington (Sacred Heart). In addition to helping facilitate this year’s conference, the group will help plan the 2017 HYPE Student Leadership Conference.

Topics for this year’s breakout sessions include seminars on Communication and Team Building (Dr. Greg Dale), Social Identity (Omari Pearson) and Team Building (Kara Mattingly, Asbury University). This year’s keynote speaker will be Patrick George (Challenges Today, Success Tomorrow).

“We are one of about twenty-eight states that conduct a similar student conference, but one of only a handful that provide the service free of charge,” said Associate Commissioner Butch Cope. “Based upon input from our student-advisory group, we try to plan a conference that allows students to take back practices and information and use it at the local level.”

The conference is free to attendees and primarily funded with the receipts from the Association’s corporate sponsor program. More than 600 student-athletes attended the two-day session last year. The 2016 HYPE Student Leadership Conference marks the sixth summit since the event was split into two meetings to better accommodate students across the Commonwealth.

– KHSAA –

About the Kentucky High School Athletic Association
The Kentucky High School Athletic Association was organized in 1917 and is the agency designated by the Kentucky Department of Education to manage high school athletics in the Commonwealth. The Association is a voluntary nonprofit 501(c)3 organization made up of 277 member schools both public and private. The KHSAA sanctions 43 state championships in 13 sports and 4 sport-activities, licenses and trains over 4,000 officials, provides catastrophic insurance for its more than 70,000 member school student-athletes, as well as overseeing coaching education and sports safety programs.