Sixteen rising high-school juniors and seniors from across the region spent a day at The River 95.3 as part of the Top of Virginia Regional Chamber’s Arising Leadership Program — and walked out with elevator pitches, station tours, and a whole new sense of what’s possible in their own backyard.

The first surprise wasn’t the equipment. It wasn’t the satellites beaming music from Texas. It wasn’t even the fact that doing a 15-second weather blurb is much harder than it sounds.

The first surprise, for most of the 16 students who walked into The River 95.3 on Monday afternoon, was simply that the station existed at all.

“I honestly didn’t even know we had a radio station in Front Royal,” said Emily Ramirez, a rising senior at Sherando High School. By the end of the afternoon, she was already planning her debut: “I’m gonna be like, ‘Guys, I was on the radio.'”

She wasn’t alone. The same admission came up again and again as the students rotated through the studio — from Kimberly Andrade at John Handley, from Amoni Hill at James Wood, from Brennan Carter at Millbrook. Several of them grew up only a few miles away. None of them had ever been inside.

That’s exactly the gap the Top of Virginia Regional Chamber‘s Arising Leadership Program is built to close.

A week and a half of careers they didn’t know existed

Now in its latest cohort, the Arising Leadership Program brings rising juniors and seniors from John Handley, Millbrook, Sherando, Clarke County, and James Wood together for a week and a half of immersive career exposure. Over the course of the program, students rotate through industries that span the region — radio, aviation, healthcare, law, criminal justice, hospitality, culinary, agriculture, and more — getting hands-on time with professionals doing the work every day.

“You can’t be it if you can’t see it,” said program director Missy Spielman, who guided the group through their day at the station. “We want to expose them to some of the things that are out there, especially right in their own backyard. There are so many wonderful opportunities for these students in this region — they just may not know they exist.”

Monday’s stop was The River 95.3, where the students spent the afternoon split into rotating groups across the station’s departments. Sports Director Ryan Rutherford walked them through how he assembles a local sports broadcast and what goes into selling radio. Operations Manager Lonnie Hill took them through the technical side — the equipment, the satellites, the playlist building. (Some of the music that aired the following day was selected by the students themselves.) Business Manager Kathy Willis explained the side of the industry most people never see: how a radio station actually pays its bills.

And host Janet Michael brought them, two and three at a time, into the studio to talk on air about what they hoped to get out of the program and what they were finding surprising about radio. Click here to listen to the conversation on The Valley Today.

“It’s a lot bigger than what I thought”

The misconceptions came out quickly.

“I thought it was just like a little, tiny office, and you just have like a little microphone and you’re just speaking into it,” Kimberly said, gesturing around at the multi-studio setup. “But it’s actually way bigger than I thought.”

Tiffany Yau, a rising senior at Millbrook, said the day completely reframed her sense of what radio actually is: “I didn’t realize there were so many different levels to this career.”

For Sierra Chastain, a rising junior at Clarke County, the eye-opener was the planning. “It’s been interesting learning all the planning that goes behind this — especially talking with Ryan about all the planning he has to do for the football games and basketball games.”

For Brennan Carter, the surprise was a piece of infrastructure he hadn’t thought twice about before: “Just the way that the satellites worked — like, how the music that comes through, it’s from Texas. I thought that was interesting.”

And for Noah Mandel, the lesson came from trying his hand at the booth itself. “A lot harder than what it seemed. I was over there trying to practice with Lonnie, and it was a lot harder than what I thought.”

Where they think they’re headed

The class isn’t short on ambition — or specificity.

Amoni Hill wants to be an anesthesiologist. Sierra Chastain wants to be a dentist (the host campaigned for “DJ” instead — unsuccessfully). Cole Stockli, a rising senior at Millbrook, is drawn to both medical and culinary careers. Tiffany Yau is weighing engineering against medical sciences. Jack Bruns is thinking business analytics. Noah Mandel wants to combine sports with medicine through physical therapy.

And then there’s Nyomi Coates, a rising senior at Sherando, whose career aspiration may be the most twenty-first-century answer in the bunch: she wants to be an architect — because of Minecraft.

“My friend was like, ‘You should be an architect,'” she explained. “At first I thought he was joking. But then I really looked into how much I actually like different architecture from all around the world, and it really made me want to be able to do that for different towns or cities or even other countries.”

Janet’s response captured the spirit of the day. “Careers come from the strangest places. That’s not the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Returning by choice

Not everyone in the room was new. Lucy Gluszak, a 12th grader at John Handley, went through the program last year — and liked it enough that she asked her work-based learning coach to set up an internship for her at the Winchester Regional Airport, one of the program’s host sites.

“I loved the program so much. I made really good friends,” she said. “And I loved it so much that I asked my work-based learning coach if she could set up an internship with them.”

Her favorite stop, she said with a grin, was the same one she was visiting again: the radio station.

Skills that travel

The career exposure is only half of what the program is teaching. Earlier in the day, before the students arrived at the station, they’d worked on developing their elevator pitches — a short, polished introduction that captures who they are and what they’re interested in.

For Owen Parker, a rising senior at Millbrook, that was a standout moment: “Working on the elevator pitch was nice, because that’s something I wouldn’t think about doing.” For Cole Stockli, the lesson was about something quieter but more fundamental: “There’s a big focus on communication, especially when you’re working with other people. You need to know how to communicate, or else it’s going to kind of crash and burn.”

Christiana Ekoue, a rising senior at John Handley, said the part of the day that stayed with her was something she’d heard from Kathy Willis: that listeners tune out when they hear the same voice for too many times in a row — which is why programmers stagger different voices, alternating higher and lower pitches, male and female.

“I thought that was really interesting,” she said. “And another thing that was really fun was Ryan talking about the sports marketing — all the planning and preparation that goes into just getting the highlights about sports events.”

These are not throwaway lessons. They’re communication skills, planning skills, attention to audience — the kind of skills that travel from one career to the next, whether the student ends up as a leader in a studio, an operating room, a courtroom, or a kitchen.

A different kind of network

For Spielman, the most striking moment came on orientation night, before the rotations even began.

“This group was very quiet and a little reserved at first,” she said. “Maybe that’s because their parents were still in the room. But when their parents took a little tour of the airport and were signing off on documents in the lobby, and it was just the students in the room, we started practicing — how do you do an introduction, how do you shake hands, let’s go meet one another — and they just opened up.”

What she watched next, she said, was a kind of network forming in real time. Students from rival schools introducing themselves. Phone numbers being swapped. No hanging back, no judgment about which jersey anyone wore on Friday nights.

It’s a generational shift that Janet noted, too. “We come from an era where there was only James Wood and Handley. There were no other schools. And I think the kids now — because there’s Millbrook and Sherando — it’s not as big of a deal. They’re much more open to talking to each other.”

Spielman pointed out the practical advantage: “Because of technology, sometimes we tend to see the negatives, but there are positives. When we did programs like this, we didn’t have cell phones to stay connected after it was over. These young people are meeting one another, swapping numbers, staying connected. And really, that’s what we do at the Top of Virginia Regional Chamber — that’s networking. So these students are learning to network at a very early stage, and in a very authentic way.”

Hiring, by the way

Janet wrapped up the day with what might have been the most informal job pitch the station has ever delivered.

The River 95.3 is hiring part-timers and interns. Several students were openly intrigued. Andrea Rojas, a rising senior at John Handley, was asked if she’d consider radio as a career path.

“Maybe. I don’t know. I’m open to it,” she said.

“We’re looking for interns and part-time people,” Janet replied, then looked at Spielman with a grin. “So I’m thinking half this class can leave here with a job today.”

The future, on the air

By the time the last group rotated out of the studio, the running joke of the day had become its truest statement.

“I think it’s safe to say,” Janet told her listeners as she signed off, “that at least where these students are concerned, our future workforce is bright.”

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LISTEN: The full episode of The Valley Today with the Arising Leadership Program is available at thevalleytodaypodcast.com — available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.

LEARN MORE: Information about the Arising Leadership Program and the Top of Virginia Regional Chamber is available at regionalchamber.biz.

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SIDEBAR — Meet the Class

The Arising Leadership Program participants featured on this episode of The Valley Today:

Clarke County High School Sam Donohue, rising junior; Sierra Chastain, rising junior

John Handley High School Lucy Gluszak, 12th grade (returning intern); Kimberly Andrade, rising 11th grader; Hudson Slaughter, rising 11th grader; Christiana Ekoue, rising senior; Andrea Rojas, rising senior

James Wood High School Amoni Hill, rising senior

Millbrook High School Owen Parker, rising senior; Cole Stockli, rising senior; Tiffany Yau, rising senior; Brennan Carter, rising senior

Sherando High School Emily Ramirez, rising senior; Nyomi Coates, rising senior; Noah Mandel, rising junior; Jack Bruns, rising junior