The next class of cadets will graduate next month from the Mountaineer ChalleNGe Academy and those cadets have goals.

"I plan on going to school for culinary arts," Cadet Samantha Stout said on Friday's MetroNews Talkline.

It's a change for her.  As recently as five months ago, the 17-year old from Alderson was failing out of Greenbrier East High School and, by her own admission, hanging out with the wrong crowd.

"I decided it was a way for me to start my life over and get a second chance," she says of her decision to enter the Mountaineer ChalleNGe Academy.  She did so at the urging of her parents.

The National Guard runs the Academy which trains and mentors selected at risk youth.  The program draws on eight core components in a quasi-military environment over a 22 week residential program at Camp Dawson in Preston County.

The eight core components are as follows: academic excellence, life coping skills, job skills, health and hygiene, responsible citizenship, service to the community, leadership and followership and physical fitness.

Cadet Logan Casey from Putnam County admits it took some time for him to completely buy into the program.  "It was about Week Four or Five that I really was getting in mind that I really wanted to be here, that this was something that I needed to do," he says.

The 16-year old Casey says he wants to be a welder now, a goal he did not have before joining up with the ChalleNGe Academy.

"I kind of stopped caring about school and I didn't go as much as I should have.  My grades plummeted as a result of it and that's what brought me here," he said on Friday's MetroNews Talkline.

Each day for the cadets starts at 5 a.m. with an hour of physical training followed by barracks maintenance.  There are classes, including those for the GED, in the morning and afternoon.  In the evening, there are organized athletics and preparations for the next day.

The graduates of the Mountaineer ChalleNGe Academy will be part of a year long follow-up program.