Austin Merit and Luke Poudel

Air Force Junior Reserve Cadets Austin Merit (LSN) and Luke Poudel (LSW) recently graduated from the inaugural Flight Academy class at Liberty University in Virginia.

The Chief of Staff of the Air Force Flight Academy scholarship program awarded all expenses, including travel, of over $20,000 per cadet to these flight academies. Austin and Luke, two of the 120 Air Force Junior ROTC cadets attending the accredited eight-week aviation program at one of six partnering universities, earned their private pilot licenses.
Next year, Air Force Junior ROTC plans to expand the program to 250 cadets and then to 500 cadets the year after. There are also plans to open the program to Army, Navy, and Marine Junior ROTC programs as well as Civil Air Patrol cadets by 2020.

The objectives of the Air Force JROTC program are to educate and train high school cadets in citizenship and life skills; promote community service; instill responsibility, character, and self-discipline through character education; and to provide instruction in air and space fundamentals. Enrollment is open to high school students who are in the 9th to 12th grades. Air Force JROTC is located in close to 900 high schools across the United States and at selected schools in Europe, in the Pacific, and in Puerto Rico. Air Force JROTC enrollment includes more than 120,000 cadets who do over 1.6 million hours of community service each year.

For more information on the Chief of Staff of the Air Force Flight Academy Scholarship program or AFJROTC, contact the instructors at any of the Lee’s Summit high schools.

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