Remember your high school days?
Was it kind of hard, at least every now and then, to get yourself out of bed in the morning?
Meet some high schoolers who roll out to fall in by 6 a.m. on a regular basis at Shawnee Mission North.
These are the young men and women of the Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corp, or the NJROTC.
And, by the way, this is a group of national champions.
Under the leadership of their commander, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Dennis Grayless, the NJROTC traveled to Pensacola, Florida, earlier this month to compete against other schools.
There are nearly 600 NJROTC units worldwide and only 26 actually qualify for the competition. This group has made it for 11 straight years.
.@theSMSD #NJROTC shows off championship form pic.twitter.com/CS5HtgTTEA
— TJH (@THellhake) April 14, 2016
Having won many elements of the competition since 2007, this time around they won it all!
Over the course of two days, they competed in drill, academics and athletics.
The student leader is senior Hope McAlexander. Hope just found out she will be receiving a scholarship to KU in the fall based on her outstanding service in the NJROTC.
Chief Warrant Officer Grayless said he started this year with 148 students. His unit now stands at 128.
His hope is that these 128 will take the values and discipline learned here and apply it to being the best fathers, mothers, spouses, employees possible.
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Joel Nichols can be reached at joel.nichols@kclive.tv.
