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A group of young men at Page High School are learning things to distinguish themselves from their counterparts.

With weekly dress-up days, etiquette training and mentoring, one freshman said, the group Men of Distinction is preparing him for life.
“It’s teaching me how to be a better young man and how to make a good first impression,” Richard Carter, 15, said.

He and seven other members of Men of Distinction met at The Palmetto in downtown Greensboro to put their etiquette training to use.

“We wanted them to put the things they’ve learned into practice,” Nicole Sellars said.

Sellars, a life-skills teacher, stepped in to help math teachers Brandon Mack and Cleaver Rennie with the etiquette portion of the dinner.

“We want them to be men of all seasons and go anywhere and hang out with anybody,” Rennie said.

Becoming men of all seasons includes developing networking abilities as well as learning leadership and interviewing skills.

“We’ve seen a difference in how they communicate with adults and with each other,” Mack said. “They’re even a little more motivated in their classrooms and in what they’re doing everyday.”

Men of Distinction offers participants more positive role models, Rennie said.

He, Mack and other teachers and administrators at the school speak to the group about their own life experiences.

“Our teachers have shared with us the things that they’ve gone through so that we don’t have to,” junior Burley Levette said.
Rennie said that he and Mack teach about half of the young men in the group, and Men of Distinction enables them to see their students in a new light and get to know them outside the school setting.

“Our main goal is to give them extra role models — someone they can talk to who has been there,” Rennie said.

Next school year, the teachers are looking to bring in speakers and mentors from the community to guide the young men.

“We tell them every week that we learn just as much as they do every week,” Mack said. “It’s as fun for us as it is for them.”

Contact Tiffany S. Jones at 373-7157 or tiffany.jones @news-record.com