In June I’ll have the privilege of participating in the annual LEAD: Lincoln’s Path to Leadership program in Illinois. For the past two years LEAD has provided my book, Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, to each of the students in the program; this year I’ll be there too.
LEAD is an initiative of the Looking for Lincoln program of the Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area, which covers the 8th Judicial District represented by Abraham Lincoln in his single term in the U.S. House of Representatives (where I recently participated in the dedication of the new Lincoln Room). Led by the Heritage Area’s Executive Director Sarah Watson and long-time Lincoln presenter George Buss, and in partnership with many other Lincoln and youth groups in Illinois, the LEAD program:
“provides an opportunity for youth to learn about the character qualities of a leader by examining Abraham Lincoln’s life, his ideals, his character and his character capabilities.”
Each year the participants – about 40 seventh graders selected from around the state – spend a week visiting historic sites related to Abraham Lincoln and discussing how Lincoln became the great leader we know him as today. Students walk away with a greater appreciation of leadership qualities and how they can apply them to their own lives.
In my portion we’ll talk about my own leadership experiences (I have been president of organizations four times and am currently vice-president of the Lincoln Group of DC), which will segue into how Lincoln went from frontier farm boy to leader of the nation.
If you haven’t yet taken advantage of it, check out the other Looking for Lincoln and Heritage Area programs, as well as their tour itineraries. They provide tons of information to help you visit and appreciate the Land of Lincoln. [BTW, the Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area just expanded to include the most southern (Jonesboro) and most northern (Freeport) debate sites.]
For those who followed my Chasing Abraham Lincoln tours (Parts 1 and 2) last year, I’ll be combining my LEAD participation with Part 3. Previous tours took me to Lincoln’s early life in Kentucky and Indiana (plus stops in Tennessee and Michigan) and the Lincoln-Douglas debate sites (and many others) in Illinois. For Part 3 I’ll be visiting many stops in Illinois I missed previously, plus some Lincoln-related sites in Wisconsin and Michigan.
I’m looking forward to both the LEAD: Lincoln’s Path to Leadership program and my Chasing Abraham Lincoln tour. Before that I’ll be on another adventure, but that’s a topic for a later post.
David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.
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