Jessie Mazur, a senior at Whitefish High School, was recently awarded the prestigious Venturing Leadership Award. Venturing is a co-ed off-shoot of the Boy Scouts of America.

The national award is presented annually to youth or adult Venturers who have made exceptional contributions to the Venturing program, demonstrated outstanding leadership, dedication and service, and who exemplify the Venturing code.

Mazur is a founding member of Whitefish Venture Crew 2917. Since its inception in 2007, Crew 2917 has participated in rock climbing, ice climbing, winter camping, hunting, rafting and mountaineering — they’ve summited Granite Peak, the highest point in Montana, and Mount Rainier, in Washington.

Crew 2917 also participated in many service projects, including resurfacing and repainting highway memorial crosses throughout Flathead County and assisting at the Whitefish Winter Carnival and Clean the Fish.

A vice president of Crew 2917, a National Honor Society student, vice president of her student class, and a state speech and debate champion, Mazur also received the Soroptimist’s Violet Richardson Community Service Award in 2009 and served as a legislative page for the Montana House of Representatives during the 2009 session.

In February, she was selected as one of only 32 youths in the U.S. to represent the Boy Scouts of America on a two-week trip to Japan to attend an international friendship program.