Part of the reasoning behind this project is that it is
requiring me to think about important turning points in my life, recognize
vital influences at that time and try to understand how that influence has
impacted me. It is a way to understand
how grateful I should be as much as an opportunity to express how grateful that
I am. Some of the people on my ‘list of
folks to write about’ are people who have impacted me, but I am not yet sure
how. I need to evaluate their influence
and then hopefully come to a deeper understanding of their impact on me.
On the other hand there are people on my list like Mike
Leavitt who inspired the gratitude project and whose influence I have evaluated
over and over in my mind through the years.
I could detail at length the direct impact that has come from my
interactions with Mike Leavitt and his influence upon me. The challenge here is to try and keep that
line of thought to only a few pages.
My first significant interaction with the then Governor
Leavitt came when I was 15 years old. I
was in my sophomore year at Viewmont High School and was the new kid in
town. I didn’t know many people because
my family had just moved to the area.
For years I had been interested in politics and at 15 I decided that it
was time to get serious if I were ever going to make anything of myself. I wrote a letter to Gov. Leavitt asking for
his advice, suggesting to him that if he were to take me under his wing and
teach me a few things that I would be advantaged in knowing what steps to take
as a young man. I wrote the letter and kind of sat on it for a while. Then something somewhat remarkable happened.
As part of a major land swap that took place after the
creation of Escalante National Monument the federal government had agreed to
pay $50 million to the State of Utah.
Since this money was meant to go to the school trust lands, Gov. Leavitt
and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt decided to have the ceremonial passing of
the large check take place at a school.
Lucky for me they chose Viewmont High School for the occasion. They had the ceremony in the gym and invited
all of the students to sit in the bleachers and watch while the floor was
reserved for legislators, representatives from the federal government and
tribal leaders from Native American tribes.
Obviously I was not going to just sit in the bleachers when so many
interesting people were sitting on the gym floor. So I snuck onto the gym floor and found
myself a seat. I was a little bit
surprised when my older brother Steven showed up on the gym floor with a couple
of friends and joined me. So there we
were, the only students on the court surrounded by dignitaries and government
leaders.
Knowing that the governor was coming that day I brought my
letter with me to the ceremony. After
the ceremony I tried to get close enough to pass it on, but without
success. Luckily, being on the court, I
saw a neighbor of mine close by. He was
the superintendent of our school district and who I knew had a good
relationship with the governor. So I
passed him the letter and asked if he would pass it along to the governor.
Several days later I got a call from the governor’s
assistant. He told me that he had been
given my letter from the superintendent and that he had passed it on to the
governor. As it turns out the governor
wanted to see if he could meet with me, to talk about what I had written.
So at 15 I convinced my mom to let me skip school one day to
go and meet with the governor. We drove
to the capitol and went to the lobby outside the governor’s office. Eventually we were invited into the
governor’s office to wait until he finished another appointment. When the governor came in I expected a couple
of minutes and a photograph. Instead we
spent nearly 30 minutes talking about my letter, what it would take for me to
have success in politics and most importantly what I could be doing at that
time to prepare. We did snap several
pictures, including one or two with me in the governor’s chair. It was very exciting and very memorable.
The governor gave me a couple of pieces of advice that have
had a huge impact on me. One was that I
needed to keep up to date on what was going on in the world. I needed to read the newspapers and try to
stay informed about important news events.
The second was that I needed to find opportunities to serve and
volunteer. I needed to be active in the
community and help when people needed help.
He said that helping in little ways and doing the tough work that nobody
wanted would help me a lot. Lastly he
told me to run for class office. I told
him that I was new to the school and that I planned to use the next year to get
to know people so that I could run for office at the end of my junior year. He suggested that although I would have very
little chance of winning, that just by putting my name out there and
campaigning, that I would meet a lot of people and build friendships that would
not only help me win the next year but would help me to enjoy my whole high
school experience more.
I took these pieces of advice pretty seriously and they have
had a major impact on my life. The first
two have impacted me in a lot of ways, I have kept up with the news fairly well
for the past fourteen years aside from when I was in England and I have
volunteered for many roles and jobs that have opened up a host of opportunities. But it was his third piece of advice that has
had the greatest impact on my life.
I took the advice to run for office, knowing full well that I
may not have a chance to win. I picked the
position that I felt gave me the best shot and went to work. I worked my tail off and introduced myself to
a lot of people. My hand full friends worked
hard for me as well. I was shocked when I
made it to the final over five other candidates going after my position. All of a sudden it seemed like I had a chance
to win. The experience was incredibly
rewarding, people who I barely knew stepped up to assist me. People that I did not know came up to me and
asked for campaign materials. It was a
wonderful experience.
I did end up winning that election and the day that it was
announced my life changed. This may seem
dramatic and cliché and even unfortunate, but for me it was true. I attended a dance that night and the results
were announced. For the first time I
felt like people knew who I was and I had people to hang out with and talk
to. All of a sudden I was comfortable in
the room.
Ultimately I became as social as anybody in the class and
felt like my life was filled with good friends and rewarding service. I learned a lot being a class officer and had
a great time doing it. But the impact of
doing that as a junior rather than as a senior was tremendous.
Each year the Davis School District Board of Education has
one student member represent all of the students in the district. Each year they look at student names
submitted from the various high schools to fill the seat. Viewmont had a tradition of simply submitting
the name of the Junior Class President to be the next year’s representative. In my year they changed the tradition and
sent my name, the vice-president, instead.
I was not in the same league as most of the other applicants. If I remember correctly five of the eight
nominees had 4.0 GPAs, two of them had GPAs above 3.85 leaving me the remaining
candidate with a GPA that barely qualified me to participate at a 3.2. These students were in countless AP and
honors classes and had been good students their whole lives. I had been a horrible student for most of my
life and had only pulled things together the previous two years.
For some reason, against their previous tradition and track record,
the school board and administrators chose me that year. This meant that for a year I would have the
chance to sit on the board and represent the needs of the students. I was able to hold council with student body
presidents from all of the schools. I
was able to get into all of the activities for free (which saved me over $400
when I added it all up, I went to a lot of activities). I was able to meet a lot of people that would
become friends and that would be incredibly helpful to my career in the future.
Later it was because of that position and what I did there that
I was invited to have an internship with the Davis School District Foundation. It was that internship that allowed me to
establish relationships with many mayors and city councils in the county
through the Davis Reads Program. It was
partly those relationships that made me an attractive candidate to run the
community television station for the chamber of commerce. Also while working in that internship I met
Scott Lunt who would later invite me to apply for a job at the Utah Hotel &
Lodging Association, a position that really added a jolt in the arm of my
career.
I can literally say that had I not run for student body office
that year I would not have had those jobs, and would not have the job that I
have today. I could give more details of
how that happened but the point is that a single piece of advice given to me by
a governor that could have easily been ‘too busy’ to meet with me at age 15,
changed my life. It gave me rich
experiences that I could have had in no other way.
It was two years after our first meeting while I was doing
my required senior job shadow that I met with Governor Leavitt again. I was able to get a day shadowing the Deputy
of Education Vernon (Con) Rowley whose office was down the hall from the Lt.
Governor and Governor (This is another example of a benefit that came from
being on the school board). So I met
briefly with Olene Walker and talked about what her role was as the Lt.
Governor. Then I met with Gov. Leavitt
again. This time we had a couple of
minutes and snapped a few pictures. He
was a bit rushed because, as luck would have it, it was the day of his inauguration. Then I encountered another
one of countless little coincidences that have impacted my life. One of the governor’s staff ended up not
being able to attend the inauguration.
It just so happened that I was standing there when the chief of staff
got the news and I was invited to attend in their place.
The inauguration ceremony was fun and interesting with great
speeches and some exciting fanfare. The
part that impacted me the most, and that I will always remember came after the
ceremony. There were fireworks on the
south lawn of the capitol afterwards to celebrate. The elected officials and their families were
invited into a little roped off area on the capitol steps where everybody else
was ushered out to the lawn. Luckily
Mike Leavitt had a son about my age and as I saw him and a few friends heading
outside to the steps I was able to slip past security and blend right in. Once outside I ditched the other teenagers
and I went down the steps to where Mike Leavitt and his wife Jacalyn were
standing. I stood next to them and as
the fireworks went off got another chance to talk to the governor. I asked him how it felt to be inaugurated as
Governor, he said that it was a great feeling, and that it was as overwhelming
the third time as it was the first. Then
he said, “Maybe you will get to feel what it feels like one day, Mike.” It was a great moment. One that has inspired me and that I have
often looked back on.
I have had a few chances to run into Gov. Leavitt since
these interactions. We crossed paths
when I was working for the Attorney General and during the Olympics. He has never seemed to recognize me and I
doubt if he would know who I was if we were to run into each other today. I have written him on a couple of occasions
and shared with him some of how he impacted me.
He has always been gracious and written quick notes back to me. We are in no way friends, we are barely acquaintances,
but he has had a dramatic impact on my life in ways that will make me ever
grateful for him. He took a few minutes
out of his busy schedule to inspire a young man, in my life those few minutes
have paid huge dividends. He has helped
to shape who I am and I am grateful to him for that.
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