Lindisfarne student Penelope Meeves has taken out the Kingscliff Lions’ Youth of the Year Quest, announced at Cudgen Leagues Club on Valentine’s Day.
Penelope, named Tweed Shire’s Young Citizen of the Year on Australia Day, beat a strong list of finalists to win the title and a chance to compete in the Zone final at Lennox Head on March 2.
The finalists included Kingscliff High Year 12 trio Laura Dunn, Wade Jensen and Lauren Hutchinson.
Laura Dunn and Wade Jensen were joint winners of the Public Speaking portion of the contest.
The Youth of the Year Quest is designed to encourage, foster and develop leadership in conjunction with other citizenship qualities in our youth, at an age when they are about to enter fields of employment or higher education.
The Quest is a project of the combined Lions Clubs of Multiple District 201 (Australia), proudly supported by the National Australia Bank. The aim is to select an outstanding youth to be an ambassador and travel overseas under the auspices of Australian Lions Clubs.
The quest provides students with the incentive to pay greater attention to the general qualities so vital in developing our youth into first-class citizens. The qualities sought after, apart from academic attainments, are those of leadership, personality, sportsmanship, public speaking and good citizenship.
Students meet in fellowship and have the opportunity of open discussion, exchange of ideas and meet professional and business people from a community service club organisation.
The National winner receives an overseas trip to an International Lions Youth convention in the United Kingdom or a trip of their choice to the value of $4000 plus $1000 spending money, while the Public Speaking winner receives a trip of their choice to the value of $2000 plus $500 spending money.
