Herman Boone Convocation

       Meeting Herman Boone was such an amazing experience. There were 606 students, community people, faculty and staff that attended the convocation. Other then that, we also had a dinner prior to the convocation and a reception following it. He is such an inspiration. He talked about how he changed so many lives in Alexandria, Va. During the first year that Alexandria, Va integrated T.C. Williams high school, he was the football coach. He considers what he did for the young athletes as one of the hardest but most rewarding jobs he has ever done.

      Other then his stories about how he had changed the lives of the young men on his football team, he  also talked about how he previously had been to Bridgewater in the 1970's. He told stories about how the players were scared of Bridgewater because they saw a horse and buggy going down the street at night and thought it was a ghost cart. He also told a story about how he mad a young man run to the mountain, not realizing how far it is. Overall, he was an awesome man whose made such a difference. 

Herman Boone is coming

Thursday-
      Herman Boone is joining us tomorrow for a dinner and a convocation. I am very excited to meet him because this is the first dinner that I am truly going to be hosting myself. For those who don't know, Herman Boone is the Coach who was portrayed in the movie "Remember the Titans." He is a very inspiring man but I won't be able to fully explain what he is about until I meet him. During this weeks work, I didn't really have much to do because this dinner has been filled since the beginning of the year. Therefore, I don't have much more to say until tomorrow.

Gary Fabiano

     I met Gary Fabiano on Tuesday night. He is such a remarkable man. As a photojournalist, he has been to several different countries during war, famine, and riot. Other then his trips around the world, he was also in New York City during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This was what I found most interesting. He was buried under the rubble in a pull in truck dock under World Trade Center #7. He thought it would be safe but shortly after running to "safety" the entrance closed in and everyone was trapped. His story about everything he went through is extraordinary and heartfelt. Unfortunately I cannot explain his experience because he was very serious about how he didn't want his story to be written down unless he was writing it down. Therefore, I will have to keep his story to myself. One story he didn't say was "off the record" was one about him being in a field. While he was in the field, bullets were flying all around him and as he hid behind an overturned car he noticed his avenues of escape starting to close. He then began to take a dash through the field to a building that was about 40 yards away. During his mad dash he suddenly stopped cold in the middle of the field. As soon as he stopped, he saw a black dot flash past his face and he instantly knew it was a bullet. He then sprinted again to a safe place. This story is just on of many things he has gone though. Listening to him speak about his job and his life made me realize that I am lucky to by safe in America because although there have been terrorist attacks and there are many dangers here, America is relatively safe.

Planning a convocation

      This week is completely focused on planning future convocations. I have been assigned to email multiple people for the convocations upcoming in the spring and to look up public speakers for the fall of next year. This is what I joined the internship for but I am realizing that I don't really like planning convocations.
      I originally wanted to do event planning as a career when I came into college but as I've grown up and taken classes about many different topics, I realized that I really don't want to pursue that career. Therefore, this is not my favorite part of my internship. I looked over several public speaker agencies websites and every one is full of people who no one knows. This is an issue because we need to find people for the fall who have easily recognizable names. They also have to have an interesting topic.
     In regards to the spring convocations, which are relatively already planned, I have been assigned to email all of the guest speakers and confirm their attendance. This is hard for me to do because I don't know who the people are or what they are about. They also don't know who I am, so I don't know if they will respond to me.
      I am going to have to do the emailing and the planing in order to get through the internship but I won't like it. Fortunately, after this year I will never have to event plan ever again. I will miss working the events and meeting all of the extremely interesting people though. Again, on the bright side, I will be joining the U.S. Airforce and will be meeting a completely different rack of interesting people. Hopefully, this experience will be helpful in my future endeavors. If not, then it is at least a wonderful experience and will lead to awesome stories when I'm older.

My internship

     In just one night I found out what I great senior year of college I was going to have. The amazing night involved great food, motivational speaking, and amazing musical talent. To add on to the wonderful experience that I am about to share with you, I get college credits to do this every week.

      Before I get into what was so amazing, let me tell you a little about what I do. I am currently enrolled for an internship on campus working on our convocations. As a convocation intern, I help to plan the convocations along with one of my professors and another student. They can be religious services, motivational speakers, musically influential groups, movies, and many, many more things. Together, Dr. Pierson, Whitney and I had been working on getting a very interesting woman to come to our campus.

     It was a thursday night when Lady Gaga's Harpist, Rashida Jolley, came to campus! She was so interesting. I had been recruiting students for a little over a week to come and eat dinner with her and get to know her before she went on stage. When she arrived, Dr. Pierson, Whitney and I met her and her friend Mike outside and brought them into our auditorium. They thought the school was beautiful. In short, She tech checked and tuned her harp and then we had dinner with her, along with several other students. Then she did her convocation, and we finished with a reception so students who didn't go to the dinner could meet her as well.

    Although, I'd love to give a play by play of the night, I am intending this blog to be more of a reflection of the night. In that case, I will say that the convocation was extremely inspiring because as a young woman she was told she wasn't going to get through college due to epilepsy. She went on to prove her family and the doctor's wrong and graduated from college. She also went to the Miss America pageant four times before finally winning. I thought this was a great convocation to have to start off the year because it told many of our freshman that life will be hard and you might not be perfect at everything but you can succeed if you try and try and try again.