Keepin It Cajun: Day Of Rest

Of our five scheduled days in Arizona, Sunday was the one day that we had not arranged to do any volunteering - primarily because I think everyone, including the PTF, was using Sunday to catch their breath. You might remember a brief post from me Sunday morning, explaining an attempt to catch the sunrise. Well I missed out on the sun, but found a pretty good alternative.

Throughout the many times that I've been to the Outer Banks in NC, it always seems that the sun doesn't actually rise over the ocean's horizon till about 30 min after the scheduled sunrise (which is just really when the sky initially lights up). With that in mind and the reported sunrise time for Sunday noted at 5:50am, I set my alarm for 5:45, thinking it would give me 35 minutes to get down to the stadium, climb A-mountain, and catch the sunrise. Well, I was poorly mistaken. As I got out of bed shortly after 5:50, the sun was already up...I guess the sun doesn't waste any time out west. So I cut my losses, didn't even head down to Tempe, but instead went north a few blocks to Old Town Scottsdale for 6:15 mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, followed by an early morning run through the Arts District. Fortunately, I've got a little running pouch that fits my smaller Kodak camera, enabling me to document my more scenic running journeys.

Later that morning, Lindsay's mother picked up the girls from the hotel to bring them out to Gilbert to hang with the Gentrup clan for the day. Meanwhile, I stayed at the hotel to prepare for the Tillman Leadership Scholar brunch I had been invited to. While volunteering on Friday, I had met Dr. Mike Mokwa of ASU's School of Business, who is the mastermind behind the Leadership Through Action (LTA) program available to ASU students. After briefly chatting about our respective schools and philosophies, Mike was kind enough to invite me to the brunch on Sunday.

While at the brunch I met an awesome group of students, parents, and alumni - as well as even bumping into a family who has a niece at CNU; small world! The students were responsible for coordinating the morning, and really put a beautiful ceremony together, I was honored to be a part of it. One of the main thing that I learned was that there are essentially two types of Pat Tillman-inspired scholars - first, there are the "military scholars" who are the main recipients of the Foundation's fundraising efforts, and are selected on a yearly basis by a committee including board members, and even Jon Krakauer. Second, there are the LTA students at ASU, who are current undergrads, that get recommended for a specially designed co-curricular leadership development experience. Their participation is two years long, and they can only participate as a sophomore or junior. So, you can essentially be nominated by a peer, professor, or staff member, and then they select about 15 students for the year. Those 15 students take a few leadership-oriented classes, but also facilitate a community action project. Then, once the year is completed, they become an LTA mentor the following year, giving them a new experience, and cementing their 2-year ride through the program. To put the final touches on the picture that I'm trying to paint for you, the brunch that I was at, was to celebrate the students who had just finished their mentor year, as they had now completed the program. There were many aspects of the program that seemed to be comparable to the initial stages of CNU's President's Leadership Program - it truly left me inspired to see that over 1000 miles across the country, their is shared interest in developing leadership competencies.

After the brunch, I made my way out to Gilbert (about a 20 minute drive) where I got to meet Lindsay's parents, siblings, grandparents, and a few other extended family members. They were so hospitable, and were thrilled to be hosting us - it was fun to share some classroom stories with the group, and I feel like they appreciated getting to know one of Lindsay's professors, considering visits to campus are not frequent...for obvious reasons. Overall Sunday was just a really nice time to kick back and relax before gearing up for our last day.