White Pines Charter School
To provide the proper background for this week’s story, I need to take you back to February 1st and the Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce Out of the Box Luncheon. Thunder Ridge was holding their Pink Night the next night, so I asked If I could say a few words about it to the Chamber members. The CEO Chip Schwarze has always been supportive of the Foundation and said he would be happy to let me say a few words.
After the lunch was over, a lady came up and introduced herself to me. She was an associate at White Pines Charter School and asked me to tell her a little bit more about the Foundation. I explained how it started and our mission to help local cancer patients and their families. She told me they are always looking for people to come and speak to the students at their school and wanted to know if I would be interested in letting the students know more about the Foundation. I immediately said I would love to, and it would be an honor. She told me she would give the school my name as a potential speaker.
I had completely forgotten about it until last month when they contacted me and asked if I was still interested in speaking to the students and if I would be available on the 18th of May. I told them I would love to and that I was available.
I went out to the school two weeks ago to introduce myself. I also told them I wanted them to find a family from the school that was dealing with cancer, and I wanted the student council to give them a check. The lady I spoke with was so nice and thanked me for being one of the speakers
She sent me an email and told me I would be one of three speakers. She said that I would be the last speaker, and then we would have the president of the student council give the check to the student with cancer. She told me each speaker would have about twenty minutes to speak, so I put together my speech accordingly. I organized my speech using different examples to emphasize each of the various points I wanted to make.
The event was scheduled to start at 8:30am so Kristi and I arrived at 8:00am which is Max Wilker Time. (Max Wilker time: “If you’re fifteen minutes early, you’re fifteen minutes late”) By the time it was my turn, there was only about ten minutes left for me to speak. The lady asked if I could get the meeting back on schedule, and I told her I arrange my speeches so I can adapt to different time frames. I was able to hit the important parts of my speech and removed the different examples I had. When I was finished, I had the president of the student council come up to give the student the check. It all went so very well. Afterwards, the students Mom came up to me and thanked me. I gave her my card and asked her to contact me if she needed anything. A young man came up to me and told me he had an Aunt in North Carolina that was a breast cancer survivor, and my speech was very inspirational to him. The feeling of warmth and love that came over me at that moment was so very powerful.
I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to meet so many amazing young men and women in our community and have no doubt they will be great mentors and leaders of our community and country. Thanks for reading.
Next week: Memorial Day
P.S. I need to leave for church now. It starts in 35 minutes,