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General honors young leaders

Steve Israel, Times Herald-Record

December 4, 2007

Pine Bush — Why did a real, live U.S. Army general — with two black stars on his chest — jet to Pine Bush High School yesterday?
After all, the only general most schools around here see is General Tso chicken.
But yesterday Maj. Gen. Tom Bostick, escorted by seven soldiers, journeyed from Fort Knox, Ky., to honor 147 kids who this summer graduated from a program that aims to make them better citizens — the Leadership and Law Academy.
It's a program in which kids in the northern Orange County school awoke in the pre-dawn dark to slip on blue shirts with collars and khaki bottoms. Then they would march in formation, scale a 25-foot-tall wall and hear instructors from the school, the Army, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the police or the FBI, including an undercover Hasidic agent. They learned to read a fingerprint, play the stock market and argue legal cases. They also learned that if you don't respect your classmates or teachers, you could pay in push ups.
All of which impressed the general, who presented student commander Kara Trivolis with a trophy.
"I've never seen a program quite like this," he told a crowd of students, teachers, community members and such administrators as the high school's principal and program founder, Aaron Hopmayer. "It's about education. It's about leadership. And leadership is our stock and trade."
But most all, the for-credit program is about the 147 kids — kids chosen from 350 applicants who said the Leadership and Law Academy is still helping them. Take Stephanie Allen, 17, who applied the teamwork of platoon marching to her role as captain of the school's lacrosse and soccer teams. Or Miranda Coss, 16, who was, said Hopmayer, a "frequent visitor" to the principal's office for discipline problems, but now is trouble free.
For these kids, the visit by a real, live general was a real big deal. Or, as Coss said in her most un-military language: "That's one big dang daddy."

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