As a practice, I try to craft my Community Perspectives columns focusing on the CVC's work. After all, we are the Center for a Vital COMMUNITY, and this is our (my) perspective. Often, my personal stories, insights, and experiences enhance this focus. Once in a while, I go completely off community topic, and the Press' [...]
Ah, personality quizzes. In bygone days, one took these in magazines. My favorite story about magazine quizzes was when a friend and I went to our newly married friends’ house for Thanksgiving. While they were preparing for dinner in the kitchen, Mark and I idly picked up a Cosmopolitan lying nearby and paged through it. [...]
The first summer I worked at the CVC, I contemplated the prospect of CampFIRE (it was then called CiViC Leadership Camp. See the need for re-branding?). The program consists of five days at a remote camp in the Bighorn Mountains with 30 or so thirteen-year-olds. If that prospect doesn’t strike fear into the hearts of [...]
A picture is worth a thousand words. I’ve always credited Kodak for that, but perhaps I should dig deeper for attribution. Regardless, I have found that so much meaning is instantly conveyed by images, as opposed to mere words. And you know how seriously I take my words. The CVC hosted our first Essential Photovoice [...]
I was not an early adopter of exercise. When I say not an early adopter, I was more of an active dissenter of the whole concept for a couple of decades. My biggest exertion for the first 12 years of my life was walking across the street to get the mail. My mom had to [...]
I find it mind-blowing that we hosted Thrive vs. Survive Study Circles on Poverty ten years ago. Ten years! My children were ten and seven, my face was unlined, and spare time was a distant dream. Now I have teenagers who drive, I read novels, and our community has Parent Liaisons, a Big Brothers Big [...]
[Author’s note: For all those who missed the mea culpa column I wrote the week after the Moving to Mississippi debacle, let me just reiterate – we are not moving, nor have any plans or aspirations to ever move to Mississippi. Thank you for your concern.] It’s finally March, also known as Fool’s Spring, Second [...]
When you attempt to describe a person, adjectives usually come easily. Take me for example. (I’m sure my family often wishes you would.) I have been described as enthusiastic, loud, happy, and loud. Shy and withdrawn will seldom be words used to illustrate me, nor will quiet. However, the quality I am Least Likely to [...]
Hello, everyone! I’m just back from a riotous time in Huron, South Dakota, at the National Junior High Finals Rodeo. That weeklong road trip was preceded by the statewide nonprofit conference, Collective Voices. The week before that was filled with 33 graduated eight graders at CampFIRE, the CVC’s youth leadership camp at YMCA of the [...]
Please help me out here. I’m having anxiety and need coping skills. It’s now June. June is my favorite month of the entire year. Both boys’ birthdays (two cakes!), warm weather, everything florescent green outside, and exuberant birdsong are hallmarks of June. Adorable goslings, bunnies, ducklings, and fawns abound. I exhibit misplaced optimism about the [...]
