It seems like many of my posts so far have been about
political influences, or people that have impacted my career. Perhaps I will try to focus on a few other
influences in my next post. But not this
one.
After writing about Mike Leavitt the other day I started
thinking about one of the major players in that post. If you read it you would have come across the
name of Darrell White who was the superintendent of Davis School District while
I was a student there. Derrell was the
one that helped to orchestrate my first meeting with Governor Leavitt while I
was a sophomore at Viewmont. Of that
incident I could write a long post about how grateful I am to him. However, since the history of that event and
the subsequent effects of it are already in my other post on Mike Leavitt I
want to focus here on some of the other great things that Dr. White did for me,
for which I will ever be grateful.
At the end of my Jr. year I was selected as the Student Member
of the Davis School District Board of Education. I don’t know if Dr. White had influence in
that decision but it did seem strange to me that a student that barely
qualified to be a candidate by academic standards was selected over seven students
with nearly perfect academic records and stellar extracurricular accomplishments.
Regardless, I was chosen which meant that for the next year I would sit in
board meetings twice each month as a representative of the nearly 60,000 students
in the school district at the time. This
meant that I would have a great chance to work regularly with Dr. White.
The main function of the Student Board Member was to be a
voice for the students on issues facing the board. I would go to pre-meeting seminars on the
important issues and Dr. White and other staff members would teach the board
members about the issues. We would
discuss the pros and cons of decisions and hopefully prepare for the upcoming
votes. I did not have a formal vote, but
I could actively participate in conversations and give input. Historically there were many student members
that held this responsibility as symbolic and who simply responded when they
were directly asked about student related issues. However I determined to and Dr. White
strongly encouraged, that I be more involved in all of the important issues.
He would often suggest to the Board President that I should
be consulted on issues and he always took whatever time was necessary in the pre-meeting
sessions to ensure that I was well versed and prepared to speak to important
issues. He wanted me to have the chance
to be as active as I wanted to be.
One of my responsibilities was to chair the Student Council,
a group made of the Student Body President of each school as well as other
elected school officers. Dr. White
attended each of our monthly meetings (along with other district staff) and
helped me to prepare agendas and to lead meaningful discussions. Again this group was often used symbolically,
but in that year we crafted a series of recommendations on topics as diverse as
Senior Projects and Drivers Ed Curriculum, several of which were adopted. Dr. White helped us to succeed by helping me
to learn how to lead the group. It was
my responsibility in his eyes and he wanted me to do well in accomplishing my
duties. I learned a lot about committee work
and about what it takes to lead that kind of committee. Dr. White and his willingness to cut time out
of his schedule in order to help me be successful in that responsibility made a
big difference to me.
Later in the year all of the Sr. students were required to
do a one day job shadow of somebody in a career that they were interested
in. A good portion of the students went
to work with their parents and many returned with great stories of golfing with
their dads for their job shadow. Others
found neighbors or family friends that were in interesting fields and a very
few contacted companies cold and asked for the opportunity to shadow people in
their chosen area of interest. I was not
sure who to shadow, I knew that I wanted to go into business, but I did not
know what kind of business. I had real
interest in politics, but did not know how I could job shadow somebody in that
realm. So I turned to Dr. White. Knowing of his connection with the governor
and their friendship I again asked if he could help put me in touch. I decided that I wanted to do my job shadow
with the governor.
Obviously this was not likely to happen but Dr. White went
to work anyway and spoke with his contacts at the capitol. He made arrangements for me to do a day long
job shadow with the Education Secretary.
I wrote much of what happened that day in my Mike Leavitt post. In short I spent the day in the Education
Secretary’s office which was just around the corner from the Lt. Governor and
the Governor, unlike how the Utah capitol is set up today. I was able to spend about an hour with the
Lt. Governor as well as some time with then Governor Leavitt. I ended up with a ticket to the inauguration
that day which led to other wonderful experiences.
In many small and some fantastic ways Dr. White has had a
great influence on my life. I learned from him about how important preparation is
when going into an important meeting or when leading a committee. I was given once in a lifetime opportunities
because of things that he did on my behalf and the doors that he helped to
open. For those lessons and kind acts
and many others I will always be grateful.
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