Rotary of Ville Platte hears about students and executives who will power tomorrow

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The Rotary year ended with the Ville Platte club hearing from the three students who attended Camp RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) during its meeting on June 25.
The three students who attended RYLA were recent Sacred Heart graduate Gabrielle Fontenot along with upcoming seniors at Ville Platte High School McKenzie McClinton and Caliah Guillory.
All three said how RYLA was different from other camps and activities they have participated in the past.
“I’ve been to a lot of leadership camps and seminars over my high school years in 4-H and FBLA,” Fontenot said. “RYLA was different in that every activity we did made us work as a team and made us see how we think impacts what we do.”
Fontenot continued, “Those kinds of things really teach you how to be a better leader, a better team player, and a better person.”
McClinton said RYLA, for her, was “just amazing.” She added, “They tied us together, made us get plates, and eat while tied together. We had to eat with our hands all connected.”
This exercise was designed to teach the campers how to work as a team. Another such exercise, according to McClinton, was levitation.
“We had to pick up every person in our group,” she said. “I wasn’t going to do it, but they said to trust my group, work as a team, and have some confidence. I did it, and everything worked out well. I just learned to work as a team.”
For Guillory, she made friends who became like family while at RYLA. She also “learned about being leaders, how to be in the real world, how to put others before ourselves, and how to be a better leader in the world.”
A week later, on July 2, was the first meeting of President Nicole Wenger’s year. In that meeting, the club heard from Bill Fontenot, son of Rotarian Leonard Glenn Fontenot and current President and CEO of Cleco Corporate Holdings, LLC.
“We got new owners in 2016,” Fontenot said, “and status quo was not what they were looking for. They challenged us as a management team to take this company to another level and to put forth a vision for the company.”
“Early in 2017,” he continued, “we embarked on that vision to become the leading energy company in Louisiana through investments.”
Part that investment was creating a new brand. As Fontenot explained, the new brand “illustrates a progressive company which meets the needs of its customers and connecting Louisiana’s future but still being grounded in a foundation of service having been in business for some 85 years.”
Fontenot then discussed different goals and initiatives for the company going forward and about its recent growth following the February acquisition of NRG South Central Generating which doubles the parishes served by Cleco.