Lila Dugan, right, takes a picture with her sister Sophia before the 2025 Belpre High School prom. (Photo provided)

BELPRE – Belpre High School junior Lila Dugan doesn’t seem to know the meaning of idle time.

Between serving as president of the Ohio Association of Student Leaders’ Board of Representatives, leading her school’s National Honor Society chapter, competing on the mock trial team, running cross country, working toward an associate’s degree and holding down two jobs, Dugan has quietly become one of Belpre’s most involved – and most influential – students.

“I’m very passionate about leadership,” she said. “In everything that I do, if there’s a ladder I can climb, I want to climb it.”

Dugan, who has attended Belpre City Schools since kindergarten, didn’t join Student Council until her sophomore year, although she wanted to earlier.

“My freshman year, I didn’t think anybody was gonna vote for me, so I didn’t run,” she said. “In seventh grade I ran in junior high and I got my heart crushed… So I was like, oh, freshman year, yeah, same thing. Nobody’s gonna vote for me.”

Lila Dugan, center, poses for a picture with childhood friends Chloe Brumbaugh and Megan Carmichael at the 2025 National Honor Society Induction Ceremony. (Photo provided)

Instead, she watched her friends participate and decided to try again her sophomore year. She was elected and quickly found a mentor in Student Council adviser Robin White.

“He has just opened so many doors for me in the leadership world,” Dugan said. “He’s who pushed me to run for executive council, who pushed me to even go to my first OASL event.”

The Ohio Association of Student Leaders is an organization focused on building student leaders across Ohio, and Dugan said her leadership trajectory took off from there.

Impressed by her potential, White and others even offered to pay her way if she agreed to go.

“Apparently my name was kind of thrown into a conversation (a friend) had with Mr. White, and they said that they would pay my way to go to the summer workshop if I went,” Dugan said. “And I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll go, sure.'”

Lila Dugan was named Outstanding Female Student of the Southeastern Region by the Ohio Valley Educational Service Center in 2025. (Photo provided)

She said when she first arrived she was a bit apprehensive about socializing.

“I was very nervous, so nervous, so anxious,” Dugan said. “I felt super isolated when I first actually got there, but within the first hour, I was good. I was like, ‘Oh, this is home. This is where I need to be. This is my kind of thing.'”

After returning from that first successful summer camp and seeing how well she did, White pushed her to go even further.

“I think Mr. White really realized that that kind of lit a fire within me,” Dugan said. “He just pushed me to keep going to more OASL events, run for Executive Council. And he encouraged me to run for the state board for OASL last year.”

Running for the OASL State Board was no small undertaking. Dugan said candidates must complete extensive applications, including essay questions about their service, plans and qualifications. They then deliver speeches to conference delegates and spend the entire 24-hour state conference introducing themselves, making connections and asking for votes.

Lila Dugan, right, celebrates with Megan Carmichael after a play in 2025. Dugan serves as the Belpre High School girls basketball team manager. (Photo provided)

“They don’t allow any campaigning on social media,” Dugan said. “So as soon as you’re there, you have to just talk to everybody nonstop. It’s so exhausting. … You’re trying to get your name out, you’re trying to make friends, talk to everybody you can.”

Dugan had only attended the one OASL event at that point – far fewer than many of her peers, some of whom said they had attended six summer workshops and three fall conferences.

Still, she was elected to the board.

This year, when she ran again, she said she felt far more confident. The conference was even held in Belpre, and she knew more people. When the votes were tallied, she learned she’d been selected president of the OASL Board of Representatives. On the board, four student delegates are elected; the one with the most votes serves as president.

“I think my passion for leadership has grown, and I’m more confident in my ability to connect and network with people,” she said. “Last year I was very much just like, ‘Oh, I really love this program, I want to be a bigger part of it.’ But now I’m kind of like, ‘I love this program. I HAVE to be a part of it. I have to make a difference and touch all these people’s lives.'”

Lila Dugan, left, with Leah Bugner at the 2026 Ohio Association of Student Leaders state conference election. (Photo provided)

Dugan’s leadership isn’t limited to OASL. At Belpre, she also serves as president of the National Honor Society chapter.

While NHS is built on multiple pillars, Dugan said her chapter has leaned heavily into volunteering this year.

The group has volunteered at the senior center, including playing chair volleyball and hosting gingerbread house decorating, organized a blood drive and have discussed projects ranging from partnering with the Humane Society to health care appreciation boxes and a special field day for elementary students who are often overlooked.

Every NHS chapter must complete one major service project each year that benefits the school or community. Dugan said her group has been full of ideas and is working under a May 1 deadline to finalize and carry out their project.

These formal leadership roles have led to Dugan becoming a role model in the hallways.

Lila Dugan, second from right, poses for a picture with Kloe Cooper, Chloe Brumbaugh and Adrianna Fentress at the Washington County Courthouse after a Mock Trial event earlier this year. (Photo provided)

“Since then, I have had underclassmen say that they look up to me,” she said. “And I’m like, ‘Stop. You’ll make me cry. You’re so sweet.'”

She said she doesn’t feel like she deserves the recognition.

“When I was an underclassman, I looked up to so many people. I never thought that would be me,” she said. “That’s just so odd – very, very cool.”

Her advice to those younger students looking to get into leadership positions is simple: Work for it.

“Really hard work will get you anywhere,” she said. “I have a lot on my plate. I keep my grades up – 4.0. I’m always just trying to do the best in everything I can do,” she said. “But your best doesn’t always mean 100%. Your best is what you can give.”

She also stressed not being ruled by other people’s opinions.

“Don’t be afraid of what other people think,” she said. “The more involved you are, the more doors open for you.”

These doors have led Dugan to find a surprising challenge – and passion – in the school’s mock trial team.

Originally, she said she had no interest in law and disliked arguing. But she said a trusted friend and her favorite teacher, mock trial coach and teacher Debbie Edgar, kept encouraging her to join. The team’s lead coach, Belpre City Schools Superintendent and attorney Jeff Greenley, runs what students call “Greenley’s Boot Camp” at the end of each summer.

She said the boot camp is modeled after law school: Students receive a substantial legal case by email in the last week or two of summer, annotate it thoroughly, then show up on the first day of school ready to be cold-called.

“Freshman me – I’m so scared,” Dugan said. “I am not comfortable with any of the people in the room. It’s new stuff. I’ve never done any sort of law before.”

Every night during boot camp, students receive a new case to read and annotate, and they review and build on everything in class each day. On day one, Dugan said she was the first to be called on – and she knew the answer.

“That wasn’t so bad,” she thought. That night, she said she received an email from Greenley.

“He was like, ‘Very proud of you. Great job for stepping up and knowing your stuff,'” she said. “And I was like, ‘That’s crazy. That’s crazy and awesome.'”

Dugan says mock trial has pushed her more academically than almost anything else.

“Not a lot of things challenge me in school,” she said. “So it was very nice to have that. It’s taught me a lot. Public speaking has made it a lot easier. It taught me that hard work is good for you.”

The team competes at the Washington County Courthouse in Marietta, arguing a single, statewide case written each year by the Ohio Center for Law-Related Education in front of real judges.

She said this year’s case centered on the Fourth Amendment. Dugan said she prefers criminal cases, but appreciates how constitutional law is more clearly defined.

“There’s not as many elements and factors,” she said. “It’s very much set in stone. This is what the court says, so you have to abide by it. Compared to criminal cases, there’s a bunch of different things that you have to rely on.”

She said mock trial has also changed how she processes everyday conversations.

“It’s crazy how mock trial trains you to think like a lawyer,” she said. “There’s some stuff, I’ll just be talking with my friends, and they’ll say something, and I’m like, ‘You are liable for that.'”

Dugan’s long-term plans are as ambitious as her current schedule.

She said she wants to study neuroscience and psychology and ultimately work with children with disabilities. Her top three possible careers right now:

* Special education teacher

* Applied Behavior Analysis therapist

* Pediatric neuropsychologist

She’s currently interning with the Appalachian Children’s Coalition as a career exploration intern, spending the semester researching professions and meeting professionals over Zoom. A book she’s reading, “A Day in the Life of a Social Worker”, has also broadened her view.

“There’s a chapter that I love. It makes me cry every time I read it,” she said, describing a play therapist’s account of her day. “She just makes such an impact. And I was like, ‘Oh, I want to do that.'”

Dugan is already reading widely in her prospective fields. Right now she’s working through “The Whole-Brain Child,” a book about child development that explores how adult words and actions shape children’s brains and behaviors, and how parents and teachers can better respond to meltdowns or difficult behaviors.

College search season is in full swing for the Belpre junior, and she said she’s especially drawn to schools in larger cities with strong co-op programs and children’s hospitals nearby.

Her current frontrunner is the University of Cincinnati.

“They actually have the perfect major for me,” she said. “I wouldn’t have to major/minor or double major – I could just go into neuropsychology.”

She said she toured Cincinnati in October and “fell in love.”

“It was just so awesome. I love the vibe of the campus. It was very small and compact and warm compared to (Ohio State),” she said.

Through it all, one lyric from a Hozier song has stuck with her and come to shape how she moves through the world.

From the song “Someone New:” “Laugh with every stranger, the stranger the better,

Love with every stranger, the stranger the better.”

“I love that so much,” Dugan said. “I think it’s very true, very accurate to me. I just want to connect with everybody.”

Douglass Huxley can be reached at dhuxley@newsandsentinel.com

Lila Dugan, second from the left, takes part in the Color Wars event at the 2025 Ohio Association of Student Leaders summer workshop at The Ohio State University. (Photo provided)

Lila Dugan, front left, poses for a picture with the Belpre High School Varsity Cross Country team in 2025. Dugan said she has been running cross country since seventh grade. (Photo provided)