Today was a crazy and busy day.  To start (after a full day of work and other related items), Kirstyn had her basketball game.  She played hard but they lost.  Every game she’s getting much better.  It’s great to see!  🙂

After the game, we ran home, and got Zachary ready to go to the Gombert Elementary Open House.  He was so excited and had worked hard to put things together to show us.  We really felt bad for him because we had a BIG ARTSpeaks event tonight and so I took him over to Gombert, quickly looked through everything (while Angela went to the event to help with the pre-event coordination), and then I ran  Zach home and went over to the event myself.  He was a little down, but I did my best to look at everything in the time we had.  He brought a bunch of stuff home that he was proud of, so we’ll give him some one-on-one time to look at his things with him.

As soon as I got Zach home, I ran over to the ARTSpeaks event at the Neuqua Valley Gold Campus.  It was titled How the Arts Create the Competetive Edge for Students.  We had 3 featured speakers from around the country:  Brian Pertl who spoke on “Everything I needed to Know about Business I learned at the Conservatory,” Sean McCollum who spoke on “Why you Can’t Keep a Band Kid Down,”, and Professor David King from Harvard the spoke on “Conducting Oneself into College and a Successful Career.”  Their BIOs are below:

Brian Pertl, ethnomusicologist, received a B.M. in trombone performance, a B.A in English from Lawrence University and an M.A. in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University. He then moved to Seattle to undertake his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Washington. Before completing his degree, he was offered a position as an ethnomusicologist at Microsoft. He, along with a team of other ethnomusicologists, helped pioneer the use of music and sound in multi-media reference titles, by selecting, licensing, and captioning over a thousand music excerpts for Microsoft’s Encarta Encyclopedia, Encarta World Atlas, and Encarta Africana. For ten years, Brian managed the Media Acquisitions Group, Microsoft’s central resource for selecting, tracking, and licensing all forms of audio, images, and video.

Sean McCollum was born in South Dakota, raised in Wisconsin, and now lives in the hills above Boulder, Colorado. Along the way, he has been lost in nearly 50 countries, climbed mountains and volcanoes, and sailed across the South Pacific. He has counted birds for the Audubon Society, scuba-dived the Great Barrier Reef, taught in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and ate a goat’s eyeball in the Sahel. A writing prof once told him that to become an interesting writer, lead an interesting life.  He is an accomplished writer of many children’s books and is currently writing a book about the CIA, creating Web site materials to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Marvin Gaye’s album “What’s Going On,” and researching an article about sports rivalries.

David C. King is a Lecturer in Public Policy at The Harvard Kennedy School and Faculty Chair of two programs:  Harvard’s Program for Newly Elected Members of the U.S. Congress and Harvard’s executive program for leaders in State and Local Governments. He lectures on Legislatures, Political Parties, and Interest Groups. Professor King joined the Harvard faculty in 1992. In the wake of the 2000 presidential elections, Professor King directed the Task Force on Election Administration for the National Commission on Election Reform, chaired by former presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. That effort culminated in landmark voting rights legislation signed by President Bush in late 2002. He later oversaw an evaluation and new management structure for the Boston Election Department.

The event was facilitated by Chip Staley, the Fine Arts Department Chair for Neuqua Valley High School.  The presentations by all three speakers were wonderful and we had a great time!  There were about 200 people that came!  We had hoped for a few more than that, but the room was just the right size.  Brittany came with us and she enjoyed the event as well.  After the speakers, it was opened up to the audience for questions, which there were many of.

After the event, Angela and I went over to a restaurant/bar for with the rest of the ARTSpeaks Committee and the speakers for an after party.  We had a great time talking to everyone.  We had a fascinating conversation with David King.  He lives right down the street from Mitt Romney and that ended us up talking about BYU, the church and other fun things (like big Catholic families and big Mormon families).  🙂  We had some great food and then were on our way.  What a great (but exhausting night)!  🙂