Hugh O’Brian may not be a familiar name in entertainment today, but he was a popular actor during Hollywood’s Golden Age. Best known for his role as Wyatt Earp in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp television series, he was also known as a humanitarian throughout his long life. In 1958, he founded the non profit youth organization that bears his name: Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership or HOBY.
HOBY was founded by Hugh O’Brian in 1958 as a nonprofit organization with the same mission we work toward today–to inspire a global community of youth and volunteers to a life dedicated to leadership, service, and innovation. For ten years, our flagship leadership seminars only took place in Los Angeles for sophomores from California. HOBY’s success led to an outstanding expansion in 1968 with the first-ever World Leadership Congress (formerly known as the International Leadership Seminar).
It is the mission of HOBY to empower youth leaders to become impactful members of their communities, building on their strengths to work towards making a difference in the life of those around them.
There is a chapter of HOBY in Nevada. We recently spoke with Emily Lewis, Chief of Promotion and Recruitment to discuss the objectives of the program. She is an alumnus of the Kansas leadership seminar and has returned as staff. In her highly visible role, she seeks out adult volunteers to help guide the students, speaker recruitment, and directors of recruitment to reach out to local schools to find student candidates for the program.
HOBY is “getting back to normal” as we all are after virtual programming during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are now many opportunities for adult volunteers to plug in and assist in putting on great seminars for the young people early this summer (May / June). This year’s seminar will be taking place at University of Nevada, Las Vegas from June 27 to June 29. Nationally, the group has about 3000 adult volunteers trained to guide the young people and provide mentorship opportunities. There is a need for more volunteers in Nevada. These volunteers teach the students HOW to think, not WHAT to think and to make connections with others.
Sophomore students from local high schools are generally nominated from their schools to participate in the program. Most of the fees involved are paid for by the individual schools, with some parent participation. There are a limited number of scholarships for those unable to pay the fees. Some students may write an essay or are interviewed for the program, in addition to those nominated by their schools. Once selected, they will join other youth from their community for a Friday to Sunday working weekend. A typical seminar touches on the following mission principles:
- Personal leadership. Students will hone their strengths and values to become more effective leaders.
- Group leadership. Students learn to balance different strengths as they work toward a common goal.
- Service leadership. Students take the knowledge back to their communities, complete a service project during the seminar weekend, and are challenged to serve 100 hours of working in their respective volunteer service area.
To discover opportunities to assist in the HOBY Nevada program, please contact Emily Lewis via email by clicking HERE or via telephone at (818) 851-3986.
