Our Best and Brightest
April 12, 2015
The best two hours of each work year are those spent with the MHSAA Scholar-Athletes and their parents on the last Saturday of the winter tournament season.
This is a happy and pardonably proud group who epitomize the best of what our schools and school sports produce because of the giftedness of the student-athletes and their grit to maximize those gifts with the help of family and the faculty of member schools.
This year’s 32 recipients of $1,000 scholarships represent 22 of the 28 MHSAA tournament sports. The 32 recipients average 2.56 sports per person, and their average GPA is 3.95.
Five of this year’s class have won MHSAA state championships as individuals or members on a team. Nineteen of this year’s class have perfect 4.0 GPAs.
Over the years, 323 MHSAA high schools have been represented with scholarship winners; and this year, 10 students were first-time winners for their schools.
This is the 26th year of this program, underwritten since its inception by Michigan Farm Bureau, which has now invested $652,000 in MHSAA's scholar-athletes. The longevity and generosity of this sponsorship is Michigan at its best.
And these 32 students are among our state’s most precious resources for creating a better future for our state, nation and world.
Consider Communications
June 6, 2017
Like many of my generation, I have a love-hate relationship with advances in communications technology.
I love it when, during a single day, my wife and I can have important career conversations by text with one son in China, chuckle at dog photos from another son in Texas, message with a "daughter" in South Korea, and watch videos of a "granddaughter" in California. I need it for heart-to-heart emails with my sister in Oregon. I love it for talking with and seeing many of these people in real time, face to face through Skype.
I enjoy the freedom that this technology provides me to keep in touch with both work and family when I travel, or escape to the cottage on summer weekends. It makes me far more productive than I was able to be years ago.
And that's a good thing because, with all of the convenience has come the expectation that everybody is "on call" every minute of every day.
Which is but one of the many downsides of our technological progress. Another is that people can communicate so quickly that they are prone to do so without thinking.
Another is the frequency of solicitations and the stupidity of most social media that tends to swamp my inbox. The "unsubscribe" feature cannot cope with the flood of foolishness.
I recall reading a biography of John Adams, masterfully created in large part from the letters written by his wife Abigail. It amazes me that when she wrote a letter to a person in Europe, she knew the letter would not be received for several months, and that she would not get a reply for half a year.
That was not necessarily a better time, but I imagine each word was given greater consideration as it was penned and posted.