Medina student Xander Hayes selected for North Dakota Leadership Seminar

A Medina High School student will spend late May among more than 100 of North Dakota’s top sophomores after Xander Hayes was selected to represent the school at the North Dakota Leadership Seminar in Jamestown. For a small Stutsman County community, the choice puts one local student in a statewide leadership pipeline built to shape the next generation of school and community voices.

Hayes will attend the three-day program May 29-31 at the University of Jamestown. The seminar is all-expense-paid and is designed to build leadership and community service skills while also pushing students into issue awareness, empowering discussions and informal debate. Those pieces matter beyond the certificate or summer résumé, because the program aims to send students back to their schools better prepared to motivate classmates and take part in civic life.

North Dakota Leadership Seminar says it has operated since 1981 and has served more than 3,500 high school sophomores. Each spring, more than 100 student leaders from across the state gather for the program, making selection a competitive one for any school, especially in smaller districts where opportunities are limited. Medina Public School says each school can send just one or two students each year, which underscores why Hayes’ selection stands out locally.

That matters in Medina, where students often wear several hats and small schools depend on a handful of student leaders to help set the tone in classrooms, activities and community events. Programs like NDLS are meant to widen that circle, giving rural students a statewide network and exposure to peers who may be wrestling with the same questions about school climate, volunteerism and how to lead in a changing community.

For Stutsman County, the selection also speaks to the future. The seminar’s alumni network has grown for decades, and its mission is aimed squarely at high school sophomores, the age when many students begin to emerge as leaders. Hayes’ attendance puts Medina in that conversation, and it gives the community a chance to see one of its own brought into a forum focused on what comes next for North Dakota schools and towns.