What is the Crockett County
                   "Building Connections" Leadership Program"

This program, sponsored by the Ozona Chamber of Commerce and the Crockett County Agri-Life Extension Office, is designed to seek and help develop future leadership for Ozona by providing intensive training in areas strategic to the community's well-being. Individuals will leave the program realizing their personal leadership traits and styles, strategies to effectively lead organizations, and understanding the political process. Participants will be acquainted with community needs, problems and opportunities. This program will challenge potential leaders to become involved in their community.

The community has identified a need to increase the interest of the citizens of Ozona to want to serve as leaders, board members or even elected officials. Those who have held leadership positions in the past either move away from the city or must take a less active role, and new leaders must fill the gaps. Leadership Ozona is a practical means of developing a pool of informed persons who can become involved in the various areas of community service.

"Building Connections" is intended to build a competent leadership pool for our community. It gives interested men and women with leadership potential the opportunity to develop their knowledge, and to hone the skills of leadership through a planned learning process in the atmosphere of the community itself. This leadership program will bring together persons from all areas of the community for sharing, learning and participation. When they have completed the course, they will be familiar with all aspects of life in Ozona and will have developed the confidence to be better prepared to lead and work together for all of us.

"Building Connections", to meet its goal of carrying the community forward without losing momentum, seeks to:

        -Identify and motivate potential leadership

        -Give individuals an opportunity to learn about their own personal leadership traits 
          and skills and how to best use them.

        -Acquaint such leadership with community needs and challenges

        -Offer alternate processes for dealing with those needs and challenges

        -Motivate potential leaders to be involved in community decision making

To develop community knowledge and leadership skills, participants will attend a series of eight informative sessions beginning February of each year. These sessions provide information on Ozona through lectures, dialogue between participants and community decision-makers, and tours of various community facilities. Topics cover the full gamut of community concerns: regional economy, public education, decision-making processes, tools of leadership, cultural and recreational facilities and organizations, social and charitable agencies, government and criminal justice, housing and employment, problems of aging and poverty, youth concerns - to name a few.

Participants must be able to commit the time required for the program, and participants will hopefully come from all segments of the community. A candidate must be 21 years of age or older.

Graduates of Leadership Ozona will become a part of a new community resource, capable of joining responsibly in community leadership. They will have seen how Ozona functions as a community and know its areas of need, and feel challenged to work together for solutions to the issues that face Ozona in these times of massive change. The program will be offered each year for new participants.

Click here to download the Leadership Participant Committment Form.