Grad, ulations

Sunday was a day of graduation and celebration for our families. My sister's son, Corey, graduated from Oklahoma City University's Law School.  Soon after passing his bar exam he will become a full-time trial lawyer.

As an aunt observing his life, I've most admired his tenacious focus and energy to train for a fit life through nutrition and workouts. Corey most often reflects my father's tenaciousness and perseverance.  Dad had to overcome crippling scars from burns to his arms as a teenager, and he did so without an education but with determination to do better in his life.  My father was faced with being a janitor or some menial job for a man with deformed clubbed hands.  Instead, with the help of therapy in the form of a golf club, my father excelled at playing golf competitively and eventually becoming a respected member of the South Central PGA.  Teaching the game of golf became a

passion and my father studied the best, so he could be the best teacher. 

Corey found himself drifting in life after barely graduating from high school.  "Aunt Letty, I felt stagnant. I was not bettering myself.  I wanted to be a hockey star, but I couldn't even focus on that, and I certainly didn’t believe in myself." Then one day he was drug into a street fight, struggling to get out alive, when he was slammed in the head with a baseball bat.  "Luckily," he said, "I have a really hard head."  His initial thought was people like those guys out to be in prison and off the streets, so they don't kill others.  

Soon after being battered by a gang member Corey explained that he thought it finally knocked some sense into his head.  "That fall I enrolled Rose State with the plan to build my failing grades into a respectable transcript.  The first test I studied harder than I ever had in my life.  I earned a "D" and thought, well that's better than failing."  He did indeed bring up his grade point, and he began to read biographies about Bruce Lee, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Jordan, and other men who stood above the rest in their field .

If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.

Bruce Lee

After changing directions several times in college, from wanting to be a policeman to criminal justice, he finally realized that studying law was the way he would go.  He graduated from UCO with a degree in political science.  Next, graduating from OCU Law School became his goal. 

The possession of anything begins in the mind.

Bruce Lee

Through his law school years he once again made a mental transition from being a prosecuting attorney to a defense attorney.  "I originally blamed the gang member for being such a truly mean angry person, then I realized that I shouldn't have put myself in that situation.  After that I began to realize that not all people who break the law are mean, cruel, and heartless.  I discovered that I could be a great attorney, that I could focus and win an argument."

Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.

Bruce Lee

"Once I realized that I could focus, that I had a brain, I began to

Corey 

focus on making myself better in every aspect of law and life.  I learned from my losses during school and from my years of playing hockey. I do believe in myself now.  I know that by working hard, diligently doing my homework, I will be the best attorney I can be.  I've learned that it is extremely important to honestly express yourself. Life is a story, and we all have a story to share."     

I'm so proud of Corey and equally proud, like a mother hen, of two other young women attorney's:  Piper Hoskins Bowers (former PHMS student), and Lindsey Weaver Alday (cousin's daughter).  

Help others and give something back. I guarantee you will discover that while public service improves the lives and the world around you, its greatest reward is the enrichment and new meaning it will bring your own life.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/arnold_schwarzenegger.html#IXTClJV7tg5VhCcY.99

Silver Linings in the Angst of More Tornadoes

Clouds that roar and wear tones of faded dirty greens and yellows cause me to stop and feel the air around me.  Growing up in Oklahoma set my internal clock for air pressure changes.  Sirens and weather alerts merely bring my fear to the forefront.  Sunday, May 19 found us sitting inside the Civic Center Music Hall in Oklahoma City watching one of my PHMS students, Piper Hoskins, graduate from OCU Law School.  Truly, it was a fulfilling moment for me, and for the hundreds of parents and friends of these students.  Then the sirens rang and my heart skipped a beat.  This room wasn't safe, no matter what anyone said.  These kids deserved a chance to make this world a better place, and the prayers of many beamed to the heavens.

A Silver lining in a Rainbow just north of Edmond.

We were lucky, but those in Edmond, and other parts of Oklahoma were not, homes and  lives were lost that day.  We waited out the storm  before driving back to Kansas, and then watched as the sky erupted into a deep rolling black and blue bruised cloud building over our friends and families in Norman.  There was nothing we could do but drive north and pray.  Sometimes the helplessness adds to the fear and hurt. Norman was spared but Shawnee took a hit. The voice of Gary England on the radio kept Jack and me informed of the tornado's path; my mind wondered through a lifetime of stormy memories.  Mother's words floated back to me, as they do most often when my heart is heavy, "Look for the silver lining in everything, Letty."   Then this rainbow appeared on the back side of the Edmond storm; I thought the worst was over and felt relief.

My mind or perhaps my heart, drifted back to people and places that once made a difference in my life before they died a tragic death.  One special person was Dr. Sarah Reed.  She was the Director of the Emporia State University Library School from 1975-78; the same years I lived in Greensburg and worked on my Master's degree.  She was a gracious gentle woman who allowed me to bring my little daughter, Katy, to weekend workshops.  Sometimes Katy played dolls and colored in her office while Sarah worked at her desk, and I sat in class.  My favorite memory was when she invited us over for tea.  Her antique furniture matched her charm and grace.  We sat in her living room and drank hot tea from china cups, discussing books and how computers might someday change our world, while Katy frolicked on her red cushioned love seat, and Sarah smiled.  The summer of 1978,  Sarah died a violent death while on a dinner theater showboat on a lake near Pomona, Kansas when a freak tornado rolled the boat killing three friends from ESU, and leaving another hole in my heart.     (for more on the Pomona tragedy read the article by Stu Beitler
<http://www3.gendisasters.com/kansas/5486/pomona-ks-tornado-hits-dinner-theater-showboat-june-1978>


Monday, May 20 a little after 3:00 my daughter, who lives in OKC,  texted me, "I'm safe.  Don't worry."  My head screamed and I called her immediately.  "Safe from what?"  Her voice pounded with her heartbeat as she explained what was happening just south of her in Moore.   Within minutes I turned on the TV and was faced with the horror of one More tornado.

For the loss of lives, especially our school children, my heart aches.  The devastation, like Joplin, Greensburg, Udall, and so many more will take years of hard work to overcome,  and for a few there will be some silver linings.

May 19, setting sun after the storms had passed along I-35.