Building the capacity of volunteer leaders within the county is critical for the sustainability of a community's infrastructure to strengthen families. Our county will be facing substantial growth-related change in the next few years and still wants to preserve the rural character of our community.  As new leaders become involved working in the community, there is the need for leadership development to be built in three levels: personal leadership, organizational leadership, and community leadership. 

The local Chamber of Commerce and Cooperative Extension Service co-sponsored the Leadership Owen County Program for the 9th year training 16 individuals to serve in leadership roles. Each month the individuals attended sessions on education, health care, services to children, agriculture, entrepreneurship, government, tourism, and industry/utilities.

After the completion of the 10 months leadership training series, an evaluation and discussion of the Leadership Owen County Program results were:

- Top three training program days were education, entrepreneur, and tourism

- !00% of the leaders increased their knowledge about the community and its issues; as a result have changed their way of thinking about the community.

- "So thrilled to learn more about Owen County and what it has to offer. I beleive there is a lot of untapped potential. I have a better understanding of needs, challenges, and resources. I want to see the community prosper even more than before."

- " Learning how each generation is striving to better our county."

- "I did not know there were so many resources and benefits of living in  Owen County. This has been a great opportunity."

The community service project for 2018 class is "Marketing Owen County". The members are doing their research to best decide what techniques would most benefit the county. They will developed a plan and implement it during 2019.