Congratulations to the Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce, which was honored this week with a national award in San Antonio, Texas, for its work with the Leader in Me program in the Vicksburg Warren School District.

Jane Flowers, the chamber’s executive director, accepted the Crystal Star Award on Tuesday from the National Dropout Prevention Network. The award is given for excellence in dropout recover, intervention and prevention.

The Dropout Prevention Network called the Leader in Me program an excellent illustration of school and community collaboration.

That’s what should make us proudest of all.

The chamber has shown amazing community leadership in its partnership with Vicksburg Warren School District in what has become the wildly popular Leader in Me program. The program, modeled after the popular Stephen Covey book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” is designed to teach children leadership habits, including personal responsibility, in an effort to make them more successful in school and more prepared for after-school life. The program is at work in five Vicksburg-Warren County elementary schools.

The effort isn’t inexpensive. Flowers said it costs about $90,000 to implement the program in a school, and the Chamber has funded more than $300,000 for the initiative.

The efforts of the Chamber to fund and implement Leader in Me will pay dividends to each of us in the Vicksburg community. It’s an investment in our future.

We thank the Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce for setting an example others can follow on creating a better life our young people.