In Virginia: Pursuing Positiveness

Back home, most adults don't notice these kids. Gangling Dan Voll, 18, is one of the stock boys at Pacemaker Foods in Rockford, Ill. Teresa Slowen works part time as a waitress in the Sundance Restaurant in Santa Fe, N. Mex. Curly-haired John Barker is the kid who cuts the grass in Birmingham, Mich.

But during this weekend in Williamsburg, Va., these three—and 99 others, drawn two apiece from 50 states plus the District of Columbia—are absorbing the interest of adults, for they have been judged the brightest and best leaders of the nation's...