After Work Ride

Emergent Leadership

"From Shakespeare's Henry V to Winston Churchill, the world is full of people who were assumed to have no leadership qualities, yet at the right time turned in spectacular performances. The opposite can also be true."
--Harold Hodgkinson, demographer

Smiles and Tears for Two Joes

Such a happy and sad day. The great news: It's our son's 24th birthday. Congrats, Joe! The sad news: I learned of the death of my friend and colleague Joe Campbell. He passed away yesterday. Both are such great guys. Both have had such an impact for good in so many lives.

Campbell's helped Utah education numerous ways. Here are just a few of the projects Joe helped improve and made more visible to Utah educators.

• C-Forum
  
• Weather Report
  
• Seven Questions for Every Citizen

Before the Bobsled

Survived my descent down Salt Lake's famed Bobsled mountain bike trail Friday night. On the way up City Creek Canyon I got this shot of the University of Utah. Looks like a pretty nice place to work, doesn't it?

Reconnecting with Winners

One of this morning's e-mails was titled "RTNDF - Reconnect with a Winner." It began, "Recently we sent a packet to all scholarship and fellowship winners to find out about your recent activities and to find out where your path has taken you since you were selected an RTNDF winner."

I immediately thought of my long-time mentor Barney Oldfield, former treasurer of the Radio and Television News Director's Foundation.

We didn't get the annual Oldfield Christmas Card this year, but I knew he'd established an incredible website a few years ago so I googled it and there was the news: Barney Oldfield, age 93, died on April 29, 2003 at Cedars-Sinia Medical Center. Here's what the AP wrote:

"Barney Oldfield, a retired Air Force colonel who was a publicist and press agent for stars such as Errol Flynn, Elizabeth Taylor and Ronald Reagan during their Hollywood years, died Saturday in Los Angeles, a friend said."

Barney and his wife Vada had no children, but cared enough about future generations to set up more than 100 scholarships including the one I received. How did a retired military man have the means to establish millions of dollars of scholarships?

In his words, "For those who have never given scholarship establishment serious thought, thinking it beyond their grasp and resources, let nothing deter you. By using the cumulative method and taking one's time, it's relatively easy to do; and there's hardly anything equal to it in satisfaction when it materializes and becomes operational."

That's true. Barney's example and counsel were instrumental a dozen years ago when I served as executor of a friend's estate. With a single legal document we put a long-term plan in place. It took about a decade to accumulate, but now interest from his gift enables the Hanna Boys Center in Sonoma, California to award the Richard K. Gaskins memorial scholarship each year.

Thanks, Barney. Without you I might not have chosen my first career as a journalist. I definitely wouldn't have had that four year RTNDF scholarship to the University of Utah, and I certainly wouldn't have thought it possible to help endow a scholarship.

Comment?

Living for Now

"Although we cannot change the past, we can learn from it and build up skills and useful insights from it. The past is over, the future is unknown and so the only time we can truly affect is now."
--Instant Meditation by John Hudson

Oh, and the answer to the quotation below? B. Dr. King. (Notice I formed the question before most the 40-year anniversary publicity started to hit the media. Perhaps it only takes one mention of an upcoming event to get your minding ticking away at possibilities?)

Related resources at UEN:

• African American History - Liberty - Themepark
  
• Civil Rights - Liberty - Themepark
  
• Speaking/Presenting - Communication - Themepark
  
• United States - Home & Habitat - Themepark

Found while looking for something else: Juan Williams on Curtis Mayfield's People Get Ready