Taking on a new venture requires a solid support system.

Adam Disque said he is fortunate to have that as he begins his new role — director of the youth leadership program YoJack.

The Leadership Jackson County board of directors recently approved his hiring.

Before that happened, Disque said his boss at State Bank of Medora, Denny Wayman, and his wife, Bridget Disque, had to be OK with him applying. Plus, the board had to be willing to move the monthly YoJack meeting day to Wednesday since that’s his day off from work.

For Disque, it all came together.

“You can’t commit to these things without other people giving your blessing. You can, but you shouldn’t, and I just won’t,” the 38-year-old Norman native said. “I’m just really, really blessed the people I have around me were without hesitation, ‘Yep, go do it.’ That was really nice that there are enough people that support you to go do it.”

YoJack started in 2000, 18 years after the adult leadership program was established in the county.

It had only been offered once a year until 2017 when two members of the Community Foundation of Jackson County’s board of directors saw value in the program and liked the concept of teaching kids about philanthropy. They were interested in expanding the program so the message could reach more seventh-graders in the county.

The result was seed money for a second session of YoJack in 2017 and 2018. Beyond that, the Leadership Jackson County board will work to secure funding to ensure it continues to thrive with two sessions per year.

Now, there are 50 kids per session — 38 seventh-graders and 12 eighth-graders. The older kids participated in the program in the previous session and are selected to come back and serve as youth advisers.

Each meeting is conducted at a different location around the county. The first four focus on small- and large-group activities to enhance team-building, leadership, diversity and communication skills. The students also learn how to use their time, talent and treasures to give back to the community and help others. 

During the fifth meeting, each student makes a presentation in front of their peers sharing how the YoJack experience helped them. That’s conducted in the council chambers at Seymour City Hall.

After three years leading the program, Kathy Nelson recently announced her resignation.

Disque said he saw a post about the job opening on Facebook and asked Leadership Jackson County Director Terrye Davidson more about it. He was in the 2017-18 Leadership Jackson County class.

He applied and went through an interview and said he felt good after it.

“A week later, they called me up,” Disque said. “I walked over and talked to Denny. He without hesitation, ‘Go right ahead. I will absolutely support that. If that’s what you want to do, go for it.'”

He said he was honored to be selected for the job.

“They were able to move the date, which I appreciated because they certainly didn’t have to do that for me,” he said. “I’m sure they had good, qualified people to do it. I’m excited about the chance to do it and looking forward to it.”

Disque said the position gives him a chance to work with kids again.

After graduating from Brownstown Central High School in 1998, he earned his elementary education degree from Indiana University Southeast.

In the fall of 2005, he was a student teacher at Margaret R. Brown Elementary School in Seymour, and then he was hired as a teacher for the second semester.

The next school year, he was hired at Medora Elementary School and was a sixth-grade teacher for three years until finishing his time there as a fourth-grade teacher.

“It was always the goal. For me, that was the one job I wanted to do. I wanted to teach, wanted to coach,” Disque said. “I got a chance to do that.”

He was a basketball coach at Medora and Brownstown Central, working with players from third to 12th grades during his tenure. He also was the athletic director at Medora for four years.

In the summer of 2016, he decided to leave education.

“Absolutely easily one of the more difficult decisions I’ve made as an adult to stop doing something that was generally the only thing I ever thought about doing,” Disque said. “At no point had doing something else ever crossed my mind.”

Being around Medora, he heard about an opening at the bank, and he said he thought having a master’s degree in math would help in his new position as a loan officer.

“That kind of opened that door to take that job,” he said.

An opportunity arose for Disque to be a part of the Leadership Jackson County class, and Wayman approved that.

Disque attended the opening retreat in August 2017 and continued to go once a month through May.

“I’ve lived here my whole life, and I know things that are going on in the community, but I don’t think I ever understood the degree in which they were happening and the amount of people that are taking real amounts of time, effort, energy and passion into solving some of the problems that we have, continuing to help the county grow as a whole, keeping the things that we have as nice as they need to be,” he said.

He was able to meet leaders around the county and learn what their organizations do to make a difference.

“I always like to say I don’t want to be the smartest person in the room,” he said. “I never want to do that. I always want to be around somebody that can teach me stuff, and I got to meet some of those people.”

He also learned a lot about the other people in his class, who come from a variety of backgrounds and work experiences, and benefited from Davidson’s leadership.

After that experience, he never thought about taking on the YoJack position, but now, he’s ready to get started.

“I absolutely look at it as a wonderful opportunity for me, a wonderful opportunity to be back in front of kids, be back in front of the youth to try to impact and help in any way possible,” Disque said. “I also look at it as there’s a huge responsibility to it.”

That’s because he said a lot of people have invested time, effort and money in the program over the years to keep it going.

“It’s more of a responsibility to make sure that I continue what they’ve built and what they’ve done because it is a really solid program that gives kids different tools and different things that they will use through their high school career, through their college career or through their work, just through life,” he said. “There’s a responsibility there to make sure we do it right.”

Nelson already has reached out to help Disque in any way she can, and he said he appreciates that.

The Leadership Jackson County board also has expressed its support, and he said his classmates have told him they will help in any way they can.

“I was always looking for a small way back in to be able to do what I always felt like I was supposed to do because I can’t do it on the scale that I used to,” Disque said. “This is a great opportunity for me to be able to do that. I’m really looking forward to it and really honored that they felt like I could do it.”

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Name: Adam Disque

Age: 38

Hometown: Vallonia

Residence: Norman

Education: Brownstown Central High School (1998); Indiana University Southeast (bachelor’s degree in elementary education, 2005); Walden University (master’s degree in math, 2009)

Occupation: Loan officer at State Bank of Medora and the new director of the county’s youth leadership program, YoJack

Family: Wife, Bridget Disque; sons, Jaden Disque and Landon Disque

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