St. Mary’s students meet their mentors, make connections

Leonard Hall kids travel to naval base

Friday, Nov. 16, 2007

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photo by Paul C. Leibe Lt. Cmdr. Mike Durst, integrated team lead for the Navy’s E-2C Hawkeye program, chats with Leonard Hall Junior Naval Academy students including Phillip Strain and Timothy Travis during the school’s visit to Pax River last week. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

Last week most of the school’s students, along with teachers and school administrators, traveled to Patuxent River Naval Air Station’s Hangar 306 — home of VX-20, the Navy’s Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 20 — to meet with the men and women who support the school.

The Leonard Hall students talked with those who work on tactical aircraft programs and collected souvenirs of their visit along the way.

After lunch at Pax River’s beach house, they got a close look at the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle, which is now being tested at Pax River. ‘‘The kids got a lot of good information from the visit,” said Craig A. Guy, Leonard Hall’s battalion director, ‘‘and they asked a lot of questions. This was a very good trip for them.”

At the start of each school year, Guy said, PEO-T workers stage a uniform drive, collecting donated Navy khaki and dress blue uniforms from Pax River sailors. The uniforms are given to the school, which distributes them to the students to hold down costs on new uniform purchases.

‘‘They do a lot with us,” Guy said. ‘‘Every quarter they provide personnel who sit on our promotion boards. They serve as judges for all our competitions, like the squads’ rifle drills and formal inspections. And about once a month we have a guest speaker visit the school” and talk with the students.

Rear Adm. W. Mark Skinner, PEO-T’s program executive officer, who recently returned to Pax River after serving as commander of the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division at China Lake, Calif., applauded the long-term relationship his PEO-T workers have built with LHJNA over the years.

‘‘There will be decisions that you make,” Skinner told the students, ‘‘that will affect you for the rest of your lives. We want to help you to map out the right course.

‘‘And the paths you take,” he added, ‘‘will make turns along the way. For example, I studied to be a naval architect and then ended up in naval aviation. You just need to be ready to make those changes when they come along.”

The trick to being happy with a career choice, Skinner said, ‘‘is to find something you really want to do, and then go and have some fun with it.”

E-mail Paul C. Leibe at pleibe@somdnews.com.