I'm Here along for the Ride

Dear blog reader

I hope that this finds you doing well and recovering nicely from the long Labor Day weekend and the week after.  I am fine. The lovely Miss Beverly and I spent Sunday at the Indiana dunes on the southern edge of Indiana Lake. See "A Day on Indiana Beach" August 8, 2012, for a proper geography lesson. As the hottest couple in the near fifty crowd, Bev and I had a great day. The day was sunny and warm. A light breeze was coming in from the Northwest. The breeze was churning up small waves with moderate surf noise. A background soundtrack that effectively scrubbed my brain of all thought. Leaving my brain so thoroughly cleansed, no thoughts of a good blog topic would or could come to mind.

Returning home for Labor Day, I woke up on Tuesday morning, slowly trying to gather my wits about me, slowly rebuilding work synapses. As I went to the closet, I realized that I had not reconnected the house chore synapses and realized that all of the fun of the weekend supplanted the very important clothes washing. I was thankful that it was only a four day work week (the best part of a three day weekend I think) and Friday was jeans day.

This weekend our flow has been re-established. Sunday evening rolled around and it found us on the road to West Lafayette. In a prior life, I worked at Purdue and one of the many things that I was tasked with was starting a new student orientation program.

A series of events and fortunate coincidences came together and I happened to find myself in a vortex of a really good thing. It was called Corn Camp and started small. We were fortunate to have a group of students who could handle a huge amount of responsibility. As a result, orientation was build around a student ran organization and not around a professional staff in an office. It made all of the difference.

That was 20 years ago. Corn Camp became Boiler Gold Rush and grew. The first year had 100 students. BRG 2013, the 20^th edition, had 5,500 students participate, plus 650 unpaid student leaders who poured there hearts into building new Boilermakers.

I mentioned that I was fortunate. I was extremely fortunate. I had a group of students who liked me and as I exited stage right to become a delusional organic farmer, they created the “Sharritt Award” to recognize the outstanding volunteer student leader.

I had the honor last night of being invited back to campus and presenting the Sharritt Award. The following is the text of the speech that I gave.

It is an honor to be here tonight and an honor to recognize the outstanding BGR Supervisor with an award that bears my name. In preparing for this evening, I was looking through the BGR website and was surprised to see what a force of nature I was in 1994. Roger Sharritt this and Roger Sharritt that. It was a bit embarrassing.

It was a bit embarrassing and in spite of being on the web, it wasn’t true. At least, I do not remember it that way. I remember a group of 20 students who knew that they could create Boilermaker community in a vibrant, fresh and innovative way, year after year, if given a chance.

As the university’s spokesman,  I said “fine, you can do that if you throw all of your energy into it. It isn’t a semester project. You may be able to cram for a mid term or final an have it turn out alright. But you can’t do that with this. You have to apply yourself everyday for a year with a 4 day final at the end. Oh, and by the way, anything less than excellence will receive a failing grade.”

After those 4 glorious days of Boiler Gold Rush, something completely insane will happen. As soon as you have tasted that sweet success of excellence; those countless moments of helping apprehensive ex-high school students discover that they are part of the Boilermaker community, after that incredible accomplishment, all of it is going to be wiped away.  The student organization known a Boiler Gold rush will become the student organization formerly known as BGR. Everyone will be told “Thank you for your contribution” Now pardon us as the task starts to rebuild BGR, the best orientation program in the country, from the ground up. Every year.

It was those 20 students who had the vision, the dedication, and the commitment to pass excellence on to you here tonight 20 BGR’s later.

One of the traits of a great organization is that it takes time to recognize excellence. To the old Student orientation committee (BGR’s leadership board), excellent work. Nice job,  and as sad as it is goodbye. To the new SOC members you are being recognized for the excellent work you have provided to this organization and the excellent potential for passing it on to a new crop of Boilermakers. Welcome to the task at hand, and remember that anything less than excellence is a failing grade.

In a couple of weeks the task of applying for and selecting Supervisors will take place and those selected should know that you are being selected for your excellence.

The Sharritt Award is recognition of an outstanding supervisor (middle management). The early leadership of BGR recognized that with out the supervisors there is no BGR. Student leaders working with small groups of students is how Boilermakers are built. So in 1996, the SOC decided to create an award recognizing the outstanding team lead. This year’s winner of the Sharritt Award for the outstanding BGR supervisor is . . .

It is nice to be in the right place at the right time and to see a theory about community grow up to be 20 years old through the work of those who are young, bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Take care,

Roger