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The Greater Valley Area Chamber of Commerce celebrated its youngest members on Tuesday night.

The GVACC Junior Ambassadors gathered at BRIX in West Point to look back on the year.

The night included the awarding of a college scholarship and the title of Junior Ambassador of the Year.

“We started Junior ambassadors 10 years ago,” said Carrie Wood, Executive Director of the GVACC. She said when it began there were only 10 kids in the program. “We had 79 applicants last year. That speaks volumes of this program…the kids and their enjoyment of the program.”

This year saw the biggest group yet, with 43 high schoolers involved in the program.

This year’s $1000 scholarship recipient was Kateley Walden of Springwood School. Walden has been in the program for four years and will be attending Southern Union. She hopes to get her nursing degree there before transferring to Auburn University to become a nurse practitioner.

Junior Ambassador of the year is awarded, based on a point system, to one student each year that participates in the most events. This year, Jacob Gordon was given the title.

Wood said Gordon always shows up early. The director awarded him with a laptop for his service.

A new award this year was the Chamber Champion Award. Skylar Lowery is a first-year ambassador and was neck in neck with Gordon for points.

Wood said applications for next year’s Junior Ambassador program are open and can be found on the Chamber website at greatervalleyarea.com.