Former Northwestern State University president Dr. Jim Henderson, in his first year as president at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, was among a group of 2024 Boys State panelists who met Tuesday with about 150 male students from around the state who are in their high school’s 2025 graduating class.
Henderson and Louisiana Gannett/USA Today political reporter Greg Hilburn offered guidance to the students and participated in brief question and answer sessions in three group sessions that lasted about 20 minutes each in the Friedman Student Union on the NSU campus.
Other panelists also engaged with the Boys State participants.
Louisiana Boys State is a program for rising high school seniors in which they learn about government and how city, parish and state agencies work together to complete projects and solve problems. Participants, referred to as citizens, are elected to state and local offices in mock elections later this week.
The weeklong program is organized by the American Legion for accomplished and motivated youth from all parts of the state. Northwestern State University has hosted Louisiana Boys State and Louisiana Girls State since 2007.
Henderson was joined by his wife, Tonia. Both are 1994 NSU graduates. Henderson spoke fondly of their student days at Northwestern and mentioned his presidency from 2015-16. He spent the next seven years as president of the University of Louisiana System before getting hired last October to take over at Louisiana Tech, the alma mater of his parents.
Henderson was also previously chancellor of Bossier Parish Community College before his NSU presidency. During his leadership, NSU had significant enrollment increases, including a seven percent jump in 2016 that was the best by any of the nine UL System institutions in that timeframe.
He took time in each presentation to make a recruiting pitch for the Ruston institution.
