Oxford-Lafayette Chamber honors Junior Leadership graduates, awards top student

Oxford-Lafayette County’s leadership pipeline took another step forward when the Oxford Lafayette Chamber of Commerce closed its 2026 Junior Leadership program with a graduation dinner on Monday, April 27, and named Rahma Ibrahim of Oxford High School the year’s Leadership Award winner.

The three-month program is built for 10th-grade students in the Oxford-Lafayette County area, and the chamber says it runs each year from late January through April. This year’s class included students from Oxford High School, Lafayette High School and Regents, underscoring that the effort reaches beyond one campus and into the countywide talent pool local employers and public institutions will eventually depend on.

Junior Leadership was launched in 1998 with the goal of developing leadership skills early, and the structure still reflects that mission. Students moved through legal, medical, university and arts settings, including institutions tied closely to daily life in Oxford and Lafayette County, such as the University of Mississippi. The program is designed not just to reward students who already stand out, but to introduce sophomores to how the community actually functions, from service organizations to professional offices to civic spaces.

That approach matters in a county where workforce development and public service often depend on whether young people can see a future here. The chamber says Junior Leadership is meant to sharpen leadership skills, encourage community service and improve quality of life in Oxford and Lafayette County. For students, that means learning how local systems work before they graduate. For the community, it creates a deeper bench of future volunteers, employees and civic leaders who already know the institutions they may later serve.

Erin Smith, who chairs Junior Leadership Lafayette and leads CASA of North Mississippi, said she was thrilled to see the students’ transformation through the program. Smith founded CASA of North Mississippi in 2018 and has also served on national CASA/GAL leadership councils, giving her a strong background in mentoring young people toward public-minded leadership. The program’s sponsor was Roberts Wilson, P.A.

The class also fits into a larger local leadership strategy. The chamber’s separate Leadership Lafayette program has long served as an adult pipeline for civic engagement, and its official site says it has more than 2,000 alumni and up to 60 participants each year. Junior Leadership, now in its 28th year, feeds that same ecosystem by bringing sophomores into the room early, before they leave Oxford and Lafayette County, or decide how deeply they want to invest in it.