James Adams Jr. was named Youth of the Year by the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northwest Indiana.
Adams, 17, is a member of the Hammond club.
Runner-up Andrea Roscoe is a member of the Gary club.
Others who competed Thursday night include Alicia Agnew, Cedar Lake; Roma Biokoro, Duneland; JaMal Backstrom, East Chicago; Keion Armour, Lake Station; Zyan Neal, Merrillville; Braylon Kelley, Portage; and Sophia King, Valparaiso.
“We’re all friends,” Adams said, at the Hammond club. “Everybody is typically nice; they’re all friendly.”
Adams enjoys helping new people at the club. “It’s so cool to integrate with everybody at the club,” he said.
At the banquet at Avalon Manor in Merrillville, about 500 people heard the competitors tell what Adams called “amazing stories.” He’s heard amazing stories from fellow Hammond club members, too.
“I’ve always enjoyed storytelling and filmmaking,” he said. “I want to take those stories and bring them to life. I want to do film different ways that you never seen before.”
The Hammond club, he told the audience, is “somewhere we can go get away from politics, get away from the streets, get away from gang violence and just be accepted for who you truly are.”
Being a member of the club has helped him take up leadership roles, develop communication skills and become an advocate for mental health awareness, he said.
Adams plans to attend Purdue University Northwest. Among the prizes he received as a result of winning Thursday is a $5,000 scholarship.
Roscoe, as runner-up, received a $2,500 scholarship. Other contestants received $1,250 scholarships.
“It was inspiring to hear your stories and really understand how the club has impacted your lives,” said Terry Keelen, one of the five judges for the event.
Roscoe said her favorite activity at the Gary club is podcasting. “The club has become my home away from home,” she said. “This became the place that I started to blossom as a young woman and to figure out why so I could be confident in who I am and who I want to be.”
“Gary, my hometown, has a rich history but is often viewed through a negative lens. People like to focus on the violence, the hardship and the stereotypes, like I’m in a ghetto, uneducated and doomed to fail, but just like me there is so much more,” she said.
Gerald Watt, now director of the Portage club, grew up in the Hammond club, he said.
“I was once an introverted kid struggling with my own speech impediment and pretty much unsure of myself, but the club became a place where I found not only support but transformation,” he said.
At the Hammond club, young Watt met a mentor. “His impact was immeasurable,” Watt said. “I’m sure many of you here tonight can point to people in your life who did the same for you.”
“I had two working parents, and the Boys and Girls Club became my second home. It was a welcoming, magical place where my family knew that I was surrounded by kind and caring professionals who truly had my best interest at heart,” he said.
“It was more than just a place to go after school; it was a place where I built my own friendships, developed my character and began to see the potential in myself that I didn’t see earlier.”
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
