So glad I did this

This is a little write-up about me that appeared in the newsletter for “Leadership Butler,” an organization in which I was immersed right about the time I wrote the article that sparked this documentary.

I was a newspaper editor at the time. Most of my classmates were city officials in Butler County (the largest in Kansas, geographically - and it's also where the subject of the movie grew up). It’s a time intensive program. We had to take several days away from work – and in my case, that meant I had to work twice as much the next day. 

So what’s the point? Well, no two classes get quite the same experience. But speaking from mine, it forced me to learn more about my community’s challenges and about myself. 

In other words, Leadership Butler doesn’t teach you how to be a leader. If you’re accepted into the program, you probably already are a leader. 

I can’t imagine that any class before or after us was as close as we were, or had as much fun as we did. To this day, I can’t run into one of them without grinning from ear to ear.

I’m not involved too much with Leadership Butler these days, just like I’m not really involved with my college alma mater, Wichita State, or my high school alma mater, Bluestem. But when any of them ask me to do something, I do it. Why? Because I'm comfortable with them, and I know they're always behind me.