FRIDLEY, MN (NewsDaktoa.com) – One Minnesota teenager is the president of Key Club International – yes, international, meaning around the globe.

Key Club is composed of 5,008 clubs worldwide and 264,000 high-school aged members. The organization is student-lead and focuses on building leadership skills and improving the lives of others.

Key Club members elected Emily Rice, age 16, their president at the Key Club International Convention this summer. She youngest person on record to hold this position. She is also the first from the Minnesota-Dakotas district.

“Emily exemplifies so many traits that we want our young adults to exhibit. In addition to being good-natured, polite and respectful, she is also determined, dedicated and motivated to serve. There is no greater honor than being selected by one’s peers to serve as the president of such a great organization. I am very confident that Key Club International will be well led during her tenure as President. We are proud of Emily and her selection as the first Key Club International President from Min-Dak,” said Dan Leikvold, governor of the Minnesota-Dakotas Kiwanis District.

More than 4,000 people from Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota belong to Kiwanis.

Rice lives in Fridley, Minn., a suburb of 27,000 people located north of Minneapolis.

Rice, a non-traditional senior at Fridley High School, takes classes at the University of Minnesota. She dropped her other extracurricular activities to take on the president’s one-year term.

“Key Club has always been really important to me,” she said, saying her local Key Club won international awards for its Socktober program.

The Key Club hosts the “Socktober Sleep Out” each year. The event includes a month-long goal to collect socks for shelters and areas in need. Socks are one of the most-needed but least-donated items to homeless shelters, Rice said. Last year, about 90 Key Clubbers participated, collecting more than 1,000 pairs of socks.

The 92 members of Fridley’s Key Club are expected to volunteer 50-60 hours of service each year.

In addition to her work on the local level, Rice also served as the Lieutenant Governor of her division as a sophomore and an international trustee as a junior.

Achieving the office of Key Club International president is something Rice has worked for since junior high school, said Mary Bowen, Kiwanis advisor to the Key Club. Bowen is also a member of the Columbia Heights/Fridley Kiwanis Club.

Key Club is a Service Leadership Program of Kiwanis International. Kiwanis, translated from an Algonquian word to mean “we build,” was founded in 1915 in Detroit to serve the needs of children.

“Emily is visionary,” Bowen said. “She’s worked hard and she’s very talented.”

Rice’s vision includes strengthening Key Club through retaining members and allowing students to improve their lives and the lives of others. Key Club is about serving communities and developing leaders, she said.

When she’s not working with Key Club, Rice said she’s applying for college. She hasn’t selected a school yet, but said she’s considering a major in communications.

To learn more about Key Club, visit www.keyclub.org.