The Governor's Program for Gifted Children

GPGC 2024 | JUNE 9 – JULY 20

GPGC Blog



Mid-Summer Madness Concert Announced

We have just added an event to our calendar – the annual Mid-Summer Madness Concert. This is a short concert by our Large Ensemble as well as selected students performing solos and small ensemble works. It’s at 7 pm on June 30th, 2015 and it will take place in the Tritico Theater (recently known as the Shearman Fine Arts Theater) on the campus of McNeese State University. The public is welcome to attend and there is no admission charge.


Starting a New Tradition

After the first few days of the Program it’s very rare, until the end of the Program, to see all of the students gathered in the same place at the same time. In order to create a little better sense of community, as well as to take advantage of having the students together in one place on a regular basis, we have started this summer to have a short, ten minute morning assembly before classes start each day.

It’s our plan to have different faculty and staff members, students, and invited guests share stories, wisdom, and thoughts with the students each day. We’ll see how it goes and evolves but for now, we took the opportunity to take a picture of all the students.

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The 2015 GPGC Student Body (at the beginning).


Classes, Schedules, Meetings, and Rain

The first few days of the Program have gone pretty well considering the controlled chaos that is necessary at the beginning of our endeavor. The students have now had two days of their academic (morning classes) and are starting to get reading and writing assignments in them.

Yesterday they had a selection meeting for their afternoon classes – all of the afternoon faculty talked about the different classes that are being offered this summer and invited the students to ask questions and select their classes. After that meeting the rest of the afternoon was given over to auditions for the chorus, musical, and drama.

The first few days are chock full of meetings. In addition to the one mentioned above, there’s an orientation meeting the first night (Sunday) in which the rules of student life are gone over, pressing questions are answered, and the housing staff is introduced. Then, Monday night, there is a meeting about the sign-out procedures as well as a meeting about the GPGC Government where the students are introduced to the concept of the functioning, responsible government here at the GPGC as well as the consequences that may happen if the government ceases to be responsible and fails to function properly.

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Mr. Brown explains what will happen if the Government fails to meet its obligations.

We’re pretty much done with the large meetings now – the students are ready to begin settling in to their summer routines. Today they went to their afternoon classes for the first time and will be able to change classes for the next few days if they’d like something different.

We also have experienced our first drenching – we thought we had made it without getting the students wet while they changed classes in the afternoon but right after dinner the skies opened and those students not prepared with rain gear got pretty wet. Please send in raincoats, umbrellas, etc. – unless it’s storming we have the students walk from class to class and they really need proper gear.


GPGC 2015 Begins Today!

Today is check-in day for the GPGC 2015 Session. A hearty welcome back to all of our returning students and an especially warm welcome to our new students. Here is today’s schedule of events:

11:00 AM – Check in for new students (Collette Hall)

Lunch on your own

1:00 PM – Check in for returning students (Collette Hall)

2:00 PM – New Student Orientation and Campus Tour (Begins in the Lobby of Collette Hall)

2:30 PM – Parent Meeting (Baker Auditorium, Farrar Hall)

5:30 PM – All Students should be back in the dorm

6:00 PM – Dinner


Welcome to GPGC 2015

We hope to use this site to communicate almost daily with parents and other interested parties. Please let us know the types of things you would like to see, and the other types of information you would like to have provided through this medium. We will try to optimize it for a mobile experience but should be easily accessible through non-mobile means as well.


One of the best parts of the program


for me was, for once, it allowed me to be one of the "normal" kids, instead of the "brainiac" nerd. I cherish that gift.


– George A., Alumnus