Soaring Students award winners told to invest in others (VIDEOS)

They say the strong survive, David Thorne told a group of Wichita-area young people on Monday.

“I don’t know about you, but I didn’t come here to survive,” he said. “I think the strong succeed. … The strong are always developing. The strong invest in others.

“Now it’s your turn.”

Thorne, the CEO of Blackthorne Energy, told a room full of high-achieving young people – winners of The Eagle’s Soaring Students Awards – that the key to success and leadership is to find a mentor, set priorities, embrace failures and invest in others.

“You’re all probably working on about 50 things right now, and that’s great,” Thorne said during a ceremony honoring the award winners at Wichita State University’s Rhatigan Student Center.

“That youth and that viral energy is a great quality. At some point, though, you have to trim those priorities down. … Take that one big idea and work on it for awhile.”

Thorne delivered the keynote address at the event, which honored 45 high school juniors from the Wichita area. The students’ resumes include academic achievement, extracurricular activities, jobs and volunteer work.

The ceremony included snippets of video interviews with each of the award winners in which they shared what they like about volunteering, their favorite subject in school, how they overcame obstacles and where they see themselves in 10 years.

Pierce Mobley talked about losing his brother Preston, who was killed by accidental gunfire earlier this year.

“We loved each other. We never really said it, but we expressed it in other ways,” said Mobley, a junior at Wichita South High School.

“After he died, I felt no positivity. One thing that kept me up was the principals, administrators, teachers, friends, coaches just keeping me up, keeping me involved,” he said. “It helps, and it’s comforting to know I have so many people in my life.”

Madison Davis, a junior at Heights High School in Wichita, said she was bullied as a child, but the experience taught her “that I can overcome any obstacles.”

“Being bullied inspired me to encourage others,” she said.

The students said they dream of becoming doctors, lawyers, engineers and Air Force pilots.

Bobby Gandu, director of admissions for WSU, told the group that their achievements so far make them appealing to colleges.

“You all have clearly succeeded at the high school level, and we’re confident that will translate to the college level as well,” Gandu said.

Thorne told the students: “When tough times hit … that’s when you find out what kind of person we are, what kind of character we have.

“I believe that experience brings us success, but experience includes a lot of failure. So you have to embrace failure for what it is.”

He also encouraged them to give back to their communities and to start by thanking the parents, teachers and other adults who support them – many of whom were sitting alongside the students Monday night.

“The first thing you do when you give back is you thank those people who brought you here,” Thorne said. “Let them know you appreciate them.”

This story was originally published May 11, 2015 at 10:11 PM with the headline "Soaring Students award winners told to invest in others (VIDEOS)."