LeadAR Class 21 Breaking the Ice (Day One)

by Adam Watson, director for Gravel & Grit and vice chair of Arkansas Civic Action Network - June 4, 2025

LeadAR Class 21 kicked off on Tuesday, May 27th at the C.A. Vines Arkansas 4-H Center in Little Rock for the Orientation and Team Building Seminar. Over the course of two and a half days the class would do just that: familiarize ourselves with the style of programming we signed up for the next 18 months and start building the foundations of teamwork necessary to thrive in such a program.

As I and my soon-to-be colleagues filed into a conference room to begin our journey, I was struck by the silence and general unease. Not to speak on behalf of my classmates, but I think it’s safe to say we were all dealing with similar struggles and working through answers to the questions that gave rise to that silence:

Do I know anyone here?

Am I wearing the right thing?

Did I pack everything I need?

What have I gotten myself into?

And, perhaps, most importantly:

Do I really belong here?

Over the course of the morning activities, I sorted through the answers to those questions as I quickly realized that this isn’t the type of program you use to check a box and pad your resume. It’s not for self-enrichment or purely personal gain. Instead, LeadAR is a program centered around learning how to bring leadership back into our communities—for their benefit and improvement more so than our own. With that realization came the answers to the larger questions and some relief to the imposter syndrome: we all belong here simply by virtue of making the commitment to be here.

We toured the pristine grounds of the C.A. Vines 4-H Center, heard presentations from leaders and alums, and worked together to set ground rules to ensure our class is productive, respectful and intentional during our time in the program. The initial apprehension was palpably fading by lunch—breaking bread together is, in my opinion, the ultimate ice breaker—and there was now some audible chatter as we all topped up our caffeine of choice and piled back into the conference room for the afternoon’s sessions.

First up was a presentation with a bit of a misnomer of a title, “History of Arkansas Government” by Dr. Jay Barth. While plenty of history and government was involved, it was largely a conversational presentation breaking down the “five states of Arkansas” and the unique challenges, successes and political history of each. Tackling issues such as persistent poverty, sustaining populations, and the causation of political preferences driven by geographics by the afternoon of the first day clearly set the tone for duration of our time together:

We aren’t here to shy away from hard problems. We’re here to learn how best to equip ourselves to work through those problems.

While I believe the large majority of us would have been satisfied prognosticating with Barth for the remainder of the day, we did eventually have to conclude our time with him in favor of discussing our upcoming service projects and other ministerial responsibilities. As we wrapped up the day’s presentations and checked into our rooms, my thoughts drifted away from concerns over group dynamics and toward the substance of the lessons we had already learned in a few short hours:

If policy matters and leadership matters, we have to be equipped with both the relevant historical knowledge and diversity of stakeholder perspectives necessary to solve problems competently. 

Politics is merely the process we go through to reach policy.

Influence is a different kind of capital than authority; it’s built in different ways and appropriately used at different times.

By dinner, a low roar overtook the dining hall. I noticed that no two tables had the same group makeup as they did at lunch—something that persisted throughout this first seminar. We were being intentional about not getting stuck in cliques and eschewed any “you can’t sit with us” energy. It began to feel as if our next activity, “cultural sharing,” might not be as nerve wracking as we may have built it up to be.

As the seemingly endless rain of the last week broke and we were able to gather outdoors under the newly constructed pavilion looking out over a perfectly still reflecting pond framed by fog masked mountains—a scene described more than once as looking to be straight out of a movie—we took turns sharing bits of our culture, whatever that may mean to each of us.  

Finally, after a 12.5-hour Day 1 agenda, we arrived at “Free Time” and had concluded our official business for the day.  After a long day, which started with a long drive for many of us, we were free to rest, watch TV, scroll mindlessly on our phones, or otherwise unplug. 

Only that didn’t happen, not immediately anyway. Some of us dried off benches and sat by the pond, some jumped right back into dinnertime conversation that had to be cut short, some grabbed classmates they hadn’t yet had a chance to chat with. We chose to be together after not quite knowing how to even speak to each other barely a few hours earlier.

As we heard from several alums over the next few days, each LeadAR class thinks their year’s class is the best LeadAR class—naturally. However, what strikes me is the program’s leadership’s ability to put together a group of individuals from all around the state, with vastly different backgrounds and careers, and all at different ages and stages of life—and to have it be consistently successful. These kinds of programs take collective buy in to foster growth instead of being cliché, to feel worthy of your time instead of gimmicky, to be something enjoyable instead of painstaking.

If anything was crystal clear after our first day together, it was that LeadAR Class 21 is bought in, ready to learn and excited to build. It’s packed to the brim with the talent, experience and connections that we’ll all need to lean on to succeed over the next 18 months and to enrich the communities we’ll bring these lessons back to.  And, perhaps most importantly, it’s full of the encouragement, mutual respect, and eagerness critical to fostering growth. 

One by one we finally called it a night on our first day—now assured that this morning’s quiet apprehension would be silence’s only occurrence during our time together—with questions of belonging a distant memory and with genuine excitement to see what tomorrow’s adventures hold.