NC Youth of the Year: 2013

Zion Culley: 2013 North Carolina Youth of the Year

The 2013 North Carolina Youth of the Year Celebration was held in Wilmington on April 5-6. After the selection process, it was announced that our 2013 Military Youth of the Year is Zion Culley with Seymour Johnson Air Force Base Youth Programs.

Zion comes from a typical blended family with his dad, step mother and two siblings (a half-brother age 9 and a step sister age 13) who live together. His half-sister lives with his mother in Los Angeles, CA and they try to maintain contact through email and phone calls. As the oldest child in the house, Zion takes on many household duties including dishwashing, trash, pet care, and sibling care. Over the years during troubling family times, he has received a lot of support from his paternal grandparents, especially his grandfather. His grandfather helped him learn how better handle conflict resolution and how to communicate more effectively.

As with most military families, Zion has endured the challenges of moving several times in his young life. He was born in Japan, but entered the youth programs first in Grand Forks Air Force Base (AFB) in North Dakota, then Ramstein AFB in Germany, before finally arriving at Seymour Johnson AFB in North Carolina. At all these locations he was very involved in the Boys & Girls Clubs programs offered at the base youth centers with his first memory being the Torch Club. Recently, he was instrumental in re-organizing the Teen Room and creation of a new Music Room at the facility. He was also the 2012 Keystone Club President and Air Force Teen Council President, where he provided leadership and motivation for the various service projects for those groups.

This is a young man wanting to cause change in the world as evidenced through his participation in Students Working for an Agricultural Revolutionary Movement (SWARM). Through his involvement with this effort, he engages school officials with his fellow members to improve the school menus and share information on access to healthy food. He delivered a presentation to national and international political and business leaders about SWARM’s work in rural North Carolina. His speech was so well-received, that the program was visited by Shellie Pfohl, Director of President Obama’s Council on Fitness and Health.

Zion is also very active in the community around the base with projects like assisting with the renovation of the Wayne County Community College library and helping with the Liberty Dillard Academy garden. In recognition of all his work in the community, he was selected to represent Wayne County as the 2012 North Carolina Association of County Commissioners (NCACC) Youth Summit in Raleigh.

As a junior at Eastern Wayne High School, Zion maintains a 3.6 GPA and is a member of the National Honor Society. He also participates in the school’s theater program and was selected as the lead in “Footloose,” as well as the best friend of the lead character in “Enough is Enough.” He learned that performing arts includes the challenge of memorizing lines, staying in character and learning difficult choreography. He also is a member of the International Prospect Club, where he continues to learn about other countries and cultures.

Zion’s current plans are to attend a university yet to be determined to seek an engineering degree, so he can design “green” buildings and to find other ways to preserve the earth. In his Youth of the Year essay, he writes “All in all, the Club is an essential part of my teenage experience. Without the support of the staff there, I may not have been fortunate enough to learn how a young person can have a big impact. I look forward to adulthood, where I too can assist youth in learning that small actions have big results.”