2025 HSLP: Day 5

High School Leaders Program Class of 2025
Day 5: Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Reported by: Keely Solomon (McLean High School, McClean VA) and Owen Engel (The Steward School, Richmond VA)

The High School Leaders Program woke up bright and early this morning for breakfast from Panera Bread, before boarding a bus and heading down to Harrisonburg. There, the program toured James Madison University’s X-Labs building, which hosts interdisciplinary research and projects across the university. Following the tour, we heard from Caitlyn Read, the Assistant Vice President for State Government Relations at JMU. Ms.Read used her time to play a game with us in which we had to guess whether a state law she gave us relating to higher education was real or fake, which the students did well on. Afterwards, students received an hour to brainstorm problems and solutions to them for their policy projects while we waited for the bus.

Once the bus arrived, the High School Leaders Program drove to the outskirts of Harrisonburg to visit Cub Run Farm. There, students ate lunch provided by the farm and listened to a presentation from Eric Paulson, the Executive Director of the Virginia State Dairyman’s Association, about different aspects of dairy farming in Virginia. Topics ranged from the amount of dairy farms in Virginia to uses of technology in modern dairy farming to milk dispensers replacing cartons in school cafeterias. After Mr.Paulson’s insightful presentation, HSLP students and program directors were given a tour around Cub Run by Gerald and Anita Heatwole, the husband and wife who run Cub Run along with their son and grandchildren. During the tour, we got to see the cows milked, baby calves, and more, all demonstrating both the daily life of dairy farming and how interwoven technology is with the modern process. At the conclusion of the tour, the High School Leaders Program thanked the Heatwoles, got on the bus, and left to return to Charlottesville…

Only for the rear right tire of the bus to get trapped in a ditch trying to make a turn two minutes from Cub Run. However, after an hour of waiting and the arrivals of a tow truck and a state trooper, the bus got out of the ditch and drove the program back to Charlottesville without further incident. In the evening, students worked on getting their policy projects ready for focus groups the next day, as well as on preparations for the Senate Simulation.