Bovina Elementary’s first Leader in Me day as a lighthouse school was appropriately themed, “Anchored in the Seven Habits.”

Principal Miki Ginn said the school got lighthouse status last year, so they wanted a theme to represent that.

“The point of leadership day is to showcase the different things going on in the school with Leader in Me and to educate the business community in what the Leader in Me is all about,” she said.

Ginn said the whole program is student-led.

“They do the school tours, they do the speeches, they serve, they greet, they do the whole thing,” she said.

Ginn said the students did a skit to introduce the seven habits to the adults, followed by some activities to teach the seven habits and how they can be taught to young children.

“We do it to showcase the school and all of the hard work the teachers and kids have done throughout the year,” she said. “The kids share their data binders with the adults and show them how they’re learning to track their data and keep up with their learning. That’s really the purpose of it to get the word out, what’s going on and showcase what they’ve learned.”

Fifth-grader Zion Nixon, 10, said he was in the skit Gilligan’s Island.

“We did a skit that included how the seven habits work,” he said. “We were stuck on an island and had to come up with ways to get off the island and we had to use the seven habits to work together and figure out a way to get off the island.”

Nixon said he and other students called them the seven habits of survival, because they couldn’t argue if they wanted to get off of the island.

“We talked about how Leader in Me affects our school attitudes and behavior,” he said. “Intelligence plus character, that is the true goal of education.”

Fifth-grader Rahamatu Blake, 11, said the school invited about 50 people from the community.

“The honor choir sang in some parts of the skit, and after that me and Zion, we were tour guides as they split us up into groups, we took them around our school and told them about things tie in with leadership,” she said.

Blake said her favorite part of the day was singing in the honor choir.

“Leader in Me, when you use the habits, they can really help you change your attitude,” she said. “We take it home and share it with our parents and family. It helps out everywhere you go.”