CONTACT: Melanie Pipkin
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May 18, 2006

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COMMONWEALTH CHALLENGE ACADEMY WELCOMES NEW FIRST LADY

Commonwealth ChalleNGe Academy in Virginia Beach, Va., welcomed new Virginia First Lady Judge Anne Holton to their campus on May 17, 2006 for her first visit to a National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program. As part of the First Spouses Youth ChalleNGe National Outreach Initiative, the Foundation reached out to the Virginia First Lady to increase her awareness of the program and foster ties with the academy in her state.

Judge Holton spent several hours at the program where she watched the Academy's documentary; toured the classrooms, barracks and dining facility; and spoke with Academy educators, cadre and hospital staff. She sat down with cadets and answered their pointed questions on her career as a judge, her upbringing in the governor's mansion, her transition into her First Lady duties and her future plans.

´The best parts of her visit were the words of advice she proffered to our cadets and the superb dialogues that took place between her and the cadets during the question and answer period," Commonwealth ChalleNGe Academy Program Director Col. Thomas Early said.

Judge Holton was first introduced to the program several months ago when Col. Early and several other Youth ChalleNGe supporters visited her office. Though she had been a juvenile court judge for many years, she had never heard of Youth ChalleNGe before that meeting. When asked by a cadet whether she would recommend the program to other teens if she were still a juvenile court judge, she said that she would absolutely recommend the program. She went even further to say she would inform her former colleagues in the circuit court about the program's benefits in an effort to spread the word about Youth ChalleNGe.

The Foundation and the Academy were extremely pleased with the visit and look forward to working with Judge Holton in the future.