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WORLAND – Worland senior, Milo Vega III was one of 2,500 high school students from across the nation who had the experience of a lifetime by being part of the Presidential Inauguration Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C.

According to the envision experience website, The Presidential Inauguration Leadership Summit is specifically designed to empower next generation leaders as they continue on their journey toward realizing the power of their potential. The summit, which only happens every four years, offers summit delegates the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness history and be inspired by world-renowned speakers, celebrate the inauguration, and to engage, participate, and be heard in a Summit Showcase that will recognize change agents with awards and scholarships.

"It was just an amazing experience and something that I would definitely be proud to tell someone to go do if they had the chance. I enjoyed all aspects of it from the speeches to getting to meet the different people," Vega stated.

"We learned about leadership. We learned how to be a leader, what it takes to be a leader, what other people see in leaders and what we can do for ourselves to become a better leader," he added.

During the summit Vega was able to hear from political figures such as General Colin Powell, Spike Lee, Governor Martin O'Malley, Carly Fiorina and Abby Wambach. "Colin Powell, to me, was by far the best speaker that we had. He spoke about his life, his personal life, how he was raised, how his parents brought him up, everything he did in war and all the business aspects that he had," Vega said. "Abby Wambach was very intimidating. She was very strong hearted about what she believed and everything that she stood for," he added.

Fox News' Tucker Carlson and CNN's Paul Beglala gave the students insights from opposite ends of the spectrum. "They had a debate for us and after each speech certain people got to ask questions and interview the speakers," Vega said.

Inauguration Day was hectic and tiring with everyone having to arise at 3 a.m. Vega stated that the 2,500 high school students were taken by 34 buses to an area about two to two-and-a-half miles from the Smithsonian where the high school program was supposed to meet. After which they shopped and ate before the inauguration began. The students were about three quarters of a mile from the Capital and watched the inauguration on the big screens.

"Sadly we didn't get to stay for the parade or anything like that. Right after he (President Trump) gave his speech we left and went back to the hotel. There we talked about the different points he (President Trump) hit, the different stuff he (President Trump) talked about and what the experience was like for us personally," Vega said. Seeing Trump being inaugurated as president was a once in a lifetime deal, he added.

Throughout the summit, Vega worked with his breakout group to create a bill for Congress, of which one was selected to be sent to Congress.

"We had little breakout groups of about 25 kids or so, where we had to come up with a bill for Congress. The group that I was in was for healthcare and medicine. We created our bill, which was an affordable healthcare type thing. We all had different portions of what we did. Some people designed a poster, some wrote an essay and I was writing the pitch," Vega said. "I wrote kind of a short poem describing what we were doing," he said.

The Inaugural Gala gave Vega time to take pictures of things that he might never see again and to talk with people. "I spent a lot of time talking to different people and hearing their back stories and giving people my own. I learned a lot about people from all over the world," Vega said.

Vega learned a lot from his experience. "I took quite a bit away from that. I was not used to the amount of people that were there and it was definitely eye opening to see how many people shared different opinions on a various amount of topics and it was just, in a way, it was humbling to me. I learned how to take everyone's thought process and ideas, values, morals, everything like that and kind of apply it to my own way of thinking while I was there. And have everyone come together as a group and not necessarily argue about topics that we disagree on but converse about it and be able to take something away and learn something from other people from different parts of the country and different parts of the world."