 Mr. President, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to recognize the Leadership Training Institute (LTIA), a summer camp being held in Bolivar, Missouri this week. LTIA is challenging America’s youth to reach for personal excellence and to lead their generation to an ever higher standard of morality and achievement than the generation before them. The United States has seen success because individuals have the opportunity to set standards that define their highest and best.
Leaders have the opportunity to be both ‘intensive’ and ‘extensive.’ Intensive leadership is influencing towards excellence those that are closest to you—your family and friends. Extensive leadership is reaching beyond to your community, culture, and even the world. My hope for today’s youth—and those participating in this week’s leadership training—is that they will take the opportunity to be leaders close to home and beyond. Programs that guide youth in setting the highest standards for their lives are essential to the continuity of morality in our culture and the setting of our sights on the noble. God has given principles which turn our eyes from the temporal, the physical, and the menial to the eternal, the spiritual, and the noble. The Leadership Training Institute is headquartered in Arkansas and its staff and participants come from many communities across America, including from my home state of Missouri. LTI is committed to training youth in the virtues which leaders such as Thomas Jefferson considered to constitute the moral fabric of our society: ‘With a firm reliance on the protection of the Divine Providence; we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.’ LTI educates youth in the lessons of our Nation’s founders—their experiences, wisdom, and legacies. Youth learn that good leaders are people of faith as well as people of science. This training in American heritage and ingenuity prepares today’s youth to set an excellent example in their homes, schools, communities, and government. I am proud to see the staff and supporters of the Leadership Training Institute challenging America’s youth to lead by personal standards of excellence. Hopefully, the participants of the program this week in Bolivar, Missouri, will set goals to become the leaders that remind us of all that is good in our country by advancing those values in their own lives. | 
