All-Staff Days, Parties, and Trainings ...

My second-to-the-last all-staff day, where our staff gather in Lincoln from across the state, and the party at the boss' house that follow are now in the books. I am going to miss my co-workers something fierce. I will see a few after I retire (you know who you are!) but, for the most part, I will move onto the next season in my life and they will keep doing what they do best ... figuring out ways to get more Nebraskans to college. 

The all-staff/training days are challenging in that 4 randomly-selected staff (and if you believe that, I have a bridge ...) start early in the spring designing the agenda and dealing with the minutiae of how a successful event comes together ... like the food choices! :) They always bring plenty of candy to pass around ... so really, how could they go wrong! 

These all-staff/training days were exceptional in the outside speakers: learning how to be better listeners (nearly an impossible task for me ...); learning more about the challenges for first-generation students; and, finally, learning about the challenges that face our veterans as they return home and want to attend college. All three of these sessions were phenomenal. I know ... you are doubters but as I sat there, enraptured by the conversation about Post 9/11 benefits for our brave soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines ... I drifted back to all that I'd learned about the GI BIll and how it re-did the American landscape after World War II by opening up college to more than the rich. I thought about my parents ... who really never had the opportunity to attend college because it simply wasn't a life-choice for most. My dad never forgot that he wanted to attend college ... and passed that dream along to his children. 

When I was 16, my dad suffered a serious stroke, then a second one. Five years later, he died of an aneurysm but in those five years, he learned how to walk again, how to talk again, and how to write ... again. After that arduous process was behind him, he needed to find a new occupation so he suggested to the Voc-Rehab boys that they should send him to college. He'd reached sophomore status before he died. I was a freshman at Augustana College when Dad was a sophomore. (Very side note: He even fixed me up on a date with his biology lab assistant. Of course I went ... the guy was cute!) 

While it was too late for my dad to take advantage of any of GI Benefits, his was a similar path that many of our wounded veterans take ... finding a new way of life through education. Today I learned that a young Marine ... who'd never attended college ... received junior status at one of Nebraska's private colleges for all the courses that he'd taken in the military. Oorah!! 

More on my lessons learned in another post ... because tonight is Friday night and that means ... baseball! I am looking forward to tonight's game, which pits the Lincoln Salt Dogs (don't ask) against the Sioux Falls Canaries (another don't ask ... but at least theirs is based on tradition.) My now hometown against my old hometown. Take me out to the ballgame ... 

Click here for a great history lesson on the song! 

Take me out to the ballgame