Today I Spoke at Waterford

 

I have been doing school assemblies for nearly 10 years. 

I feel speaking to youth is one of my great callings in life, since I can entertain, educate, and keep their attention for an hour, and it’s the best way I know how to “Give Back”. 

I feel bad for the original schools, a decade ago, that asked me to come and speak, because my message was so raw, off the cuff, unprepared, that I don’t know if any of those kids got a darn thing out of it (even though at the time I felt I really ROCKED THE HOUSE). 

Over the years I have worked this speech out to it’s current state. 

Last year I did about 50 school assemblies, youth leadership organization conferences, teacher, faculty, principal, school board trainings and talks throughout the Country, so the speech is getting better. 

During the past decade I have BEGGED one school to allow me to speak and they’ve never returned my calls. 

Yes, I am referring to the school I consider to be the finest school in America, from which I somehow graduated as Student Body President, Honor Roll Student, winner of the Music Award, All-State in Basketball, I even founded a singing group with 3 other friends that is now an accredited class called “The Troubadours”…gosh I really thought I was THE MAN!  Even the very school I refer to in every speech from Utah to New York, the school that changed my life to such an extent that I feel the need to share with the world what they taught me…and yet they would never have me when everyone else would. 

Well, today is a “Journal Entry Day”.  Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 10 AM I had the chance to speak at The Waterford School, 15 years removed from graduation, Class of ’97.  With alumni and faculty there to greet me, including the Legends of Teaching, and most gratefully The Head of School, Mrs. Nancy Heuston, one of my all-time life changing influences, even took the time to watch the whole thing. 

So why did it take so long to have me?

I’ve been really bothered by that, since every other school in America calls me, the only school I called wouldn’t even let me know why they didn’t want me. 

Today I understood the reason. 

As I was introduced by my friend and Waterford student leadership mentor, Mr. Todd Winters, he gave me the kind of introduction that made it so I had to change the entire flow of the speech on the spot.  I had 10 seconds to re-prepare all I had planned on saying, over 15 years of waiting to tell them what I REALLY think, and BOOM I’m on stage!  Had I not done the speech about 500 times before it wouldn’t have gone well. 

Was the speech perfect?  No. 

But was it a wonderful experience to talk with youth that I am intrinsically connected with, even though I know none of them personally, because we suffered the same trials within those hallowed walls in different decades? 

Was it cathartic to express my gratitude for what the school had taught me in the very hall it took place? 

Was it sacred ground for someone who went from completely lost in LIFE the first day of my second year of 9th grade to achieving some sense of significance and purpose that would set my life in motion from then on? 

A resounding YES! 

What a wonderful day it was.  To thank the teachers, past and present, to express gratitude to peers who helped me along, to see the eyes of young, bright, all-star students staring up at me knowing that was me only a short time ago watching another assembly presenter, as I wondered, “What am I going to be someday?”

I guess all I really ever wanted to be and do was what I just did today…what an amazing thing that is, I am so grateful this life has afforded me such opportunities as these. 

What a day.  Just thought I’d share.  It took a while but it was worth the wait, and I’m grateful it only took a decade and a half to get prepared. 

~ jason hewlett

The Waterford School, Class of ’97

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