The Counseling Department consists of 3 counselors and the Lead Counselor. Staff members of the Counseling Dept address the day-to-day issues of the cadets, as well as, their plans for the future. Counseling staff are available for cadet conferences and welcome parent phone calls.
There are eight core components of the Thunderbird ChalleNGe Academy program. Cadets must successfully complete all eight components to graduate from the Academy. The core components are designed to educate and produce youth that will become productive members of the community upon graduation.
The eight core components are:
Thunderbird Youth Academy is under direct authority of the Oklahoma Military Department's State Resource Management, Youth Programs Division (YPD). YPD facilitates the needs of Oklahoma's at-risk youth through additional programs other than the ChalleNGe program. Learn more about those programs and the YPD Organization at
Follow the instructions below to open or download a handbook:
1. To view handbooks online - - - click on the link below, when the dialog box appears, click open.
2. To download handbooks to computer - - - click on the link below, when the dialog box appears, click save, then save to your local hard drive in a known location.
Public tours of the Academy are held at 10:00 AM every Thursday excluding holidays and during Pre-Challenge (first two weeks of each class) - see black out dates below. All tours last about an hour and include:
Please come and learn more about the Academy.
