Y-O-U-C-A-N-T

Weekly Update 6/4/2023 to 6/10/2023 #176

Four little letters or seven, your focus is yours to decide. Before I share what pieces of the alphabet are on my mind, let me share some of my week serving as the mayor of the best smalltown in America.

This past week, I had a chance to revisit my past and teach bicycle safety at the School Resource Officer Camp. Back for a second year, the SRO Camp gives kids a chance to learn about our community from officers they know from around school. Just on day one, they have activities related to safety, health, interactions with our K-9, drunk goggles, a visit from EMS, an area conservation officer, Department of Natural Resources shares about the Raptor Center, and a lesson from an area SWAT officer. Then they get to come back for fun the next day with other area departments and learn more. This year, the SRO Camp was expanded to two sessions for more fun. Keep an eye out next school year because I am willing to say the officers will want to go another year with the way the first two years have gone. Thank you to the officers who suggested this idea last year and made it happen. It only takes a couple of things to make a good idea a reality and that is the willingness to propose it and a determination to stick with the idea to see it come to reality.

If you happened to be by Seymour High School Saturday morning, you may have noticed Ladder 1 set up in the parking lot. This was because they have reached the agility test portion of the current hiring process. WIth openings coming up soon they are ready for a new list of potential recruits to fill those spots when they do come up. Not that long ago a process like this would have a hundred, if not close to two hundred, applicants. Now we are lucky if we reach over 20. This isn’t just a problem here in Seymour, but a problem across the nation. While we could debate what is the cause of this for weeks, I will go ahead and say I don’t know the answer, but am always watching to see if other communities have found a way to improve this issue. Congratulations to everyone who tried out, and I hope you find the career that you have been searching for.

Back to which letters you focus on in my opening paragraph. We regularly have friends, family, and co-workers tell us the seven letters Y-O-U-C-A-N-T; what topic they say this on doesn’t really matter because it is a declaration of something they think you can not achieve. Something they don’t believe you will accomplish. Often, they will give you all the reasons why you won’t get to your goal. Friday night though, I joined over 2100 athletes and hundreds more coaches and chaperones at the opening ceremony of the 2023 Special Olympics Summer Games. As we watched entertainment perform and listened to speakers share words of encouragement, four little letters continued to come to the top, I-C-A-N. "I can" was the theme of the night when it came to the athletes showing us what they can do, how they can succeed in so many different areas. From athlete leadership graduates who emceed the opening ceremony or the reception we attended before it, athletes who presented with great gestures and perfect emphasis as they spoke the words letting everyone know “I can." They are correct that they can and they will. I didn’t go to the event looking to learn such an important lesson, but I walked away realizing we all could learn something from this amazing group of people. We can do so much more than we realize, especially if we shake off the “you can’t” crowd and work hard towards our goals. Step forward with unrelenting determination and confidently remind ourselves that “I can” do this each and everyday.

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