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Tonight was perhaps one of the most inspiring and electrifying nights of my life. I never thought the relay would lead to something quite this spectacular, but I can honestly say the late nights, the seemingly endless running, and the physical and mental drain on my body that was the majority of the 2007-2008 school year has been utterly worth it.
Tonight, the Never Ignore, Never Forget relay team received the SuAnne Big Crow Memorial Award at the National Education Association’s conference in sunny San Diego. This incredible privilege was breathtaking.
The day started fairly normal for our few days here in San Diego. We woke up around 9 a.m. from a fitting night of sleep in our hotel room and almost immediately began to get ready for our 11:30 practice lunch at the San Diego Convention Center. After a filling lunch during which we met the Human and Civil Rights Committee for the NEA as well as the award recipients in the other categories, we went to the ballroom for a practice rehearsal.
I had my roughly one minute speech nicely folded in my pocket ready to pull it out when my turn to speak arrived, but, instead, I had the joy of using a teleprompter (recently made famous by Barack Obama’s abundant use of them) for my speech. At first, the experience was a little strange, but I’ve decided I could easily get used to it. This event, simply a practice, was amazing alone, but it was nothing compared to the festivities that would greet us that night.
After taking a couple of hours to swim and generally relax after the lunch, we prepared for the main event: the NEA’s Human and Civil Rights Award Dinner. We had to arrive about an hour and a half before the event to mix and mingle with other award winners and members of the NEA’s board. Following this, Darham and I were ushered into the ballroom with the rest of the recipients to be announced as honored guests and, I must say, the spotlights were blinding.
The next couple of hours was filled with amazing food (salad, chicken with mushroom, shrimp, a mixture of vegetables, and excellent lemon cake), amazing conversation, and the sharing of amazing stories from the other recipients. The way this worked was each recipient had approximately a three minute video produced about him or her, was then marched on stage to applause, and were given (roughly) one minute for an acceptance speech. Every person was inspirational in his or her own way and each had a unique and amazing story to tell: from the mother whose son came out of the closet prompting her to advocate for fair treatment of homosexuals in schools to an 89 year old African American who marched with Martin Luther King Jr.
When it was my time to speak, I was a little overwhelmed. We were the last awardees, there were 2,500 teachers in the room each paying $75 for a seat, the previous recipients had all done something amazing and spoken eloquently about it, and I felt slightly out of my league.
Luckily, everything was flawless. The video that Jim Hristakos and his Broadcast Services team with the NEA expertly produced was stunning, I managed to get through my one minute (oh, no need to lie, I actually spoke for two minutes!) speech without fumbling words too much, and the standing ovation at the end was perhaps the best show of support the relay has ever encountered.
Without further adieu, here is a rough transcript from my speech tonight as well as our first public declaration of our intention to rerun the relay in 2010 from San Francisco to Washington DC:
I am honored to represent the Never Ignore, Never Forget relay and humbled to receive the SuAnne Big Crow Memorial Award.
All 9 runners from the relay team are with me today: Nathan Alexander, Aaron Gurley, Michael Gurley, Adam Heil, Jacob Heil, Adrian Love, Chris Parker, Kiet Tran, and myself. Also with us is our coach, Darham Rogers, who put up with us and all of our aches and pains for 1,300 miles and my two wonderful parents, Larry and Robbi Heck, who agreed to drive the vans throughout the trip and offered us constant support.
I wish I could thank every person that played a role in making this endeavor possible by name: those who donated money, those who donated time, or those who offered their advice and wisdom. Unfortunately, I can’t due to time constraints. So, instead, I’ll skim over a quick list:
The Genocide Intervention Network and STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition who sponsored the relay.
Davis Moore Auto Groups who sponsored a large part of the relay fiscally.
Our friends and family who contributed generously to help us raise $25,000.
Larry Landwreth, Paul Babich, and United Teachers of Wichita who both nominated us for this award and covered the cost of six of the team members being here.
And, perhaps most importantly, you, our teachers, who have inspired us, cared about us, and guided us along a path to a better future.
In 2010, we plan to run the Never Ignore, Never Forget relay again, but this time, cross the entire country from San Francisco to Washington D.C. This will be an extremely difficult task and span over 3,000 miles.
If you find our story inspiring, I ask you to visit NeverIgnore.org. Not only can you read day-by-day accounts of our 2008 run, but you can also find information on how to help us in 2010 and, hopefully, inspire students at your own schools to take similar stands for their beliefs.
So now, I want to challenge you: Take a risk. Try something new. Dare to change the world.
Thank you.
Yesterday, the Save Darfur Coalition (SDC) named the Never Ignore, Never Forget relay as their July’s Darfur Heroes! They asked me to write a blog post for them and have featured us prominently on their homepage. This recognition is awesome for us and shows that people truly are paying attention to what we did last month.
Here’s a short excerpt from my blog, you can read the full entry here.
I’ll never forget running down Highway 40 in the heart of Ohio. I think that’s the moment when the magnitude of my idea finally sunk in. Michael Gurley, my friend and co-runner, said to me between the typical ragged breath of a runner, “This is crazy. We’re on a highway…in the middle of nowhere…running.”
The chances of that being a verbatim quotation are extremely low. There’s something about running over 100 miles in a week that knocks the body’s chemistry off a bit and leaves the memory functions a bit lacking, but the true beginnings of my loss of sanity have roots in earlier times.
Sometime around Thanksgiving break of 2007, a few of my cross country friends and I were talking about the possibility of running across the country. I took the idea and, excuse the pun, ran with it. For seven months, I calculated distances, begged for support, sent out mass mailings, made hundreds of calls, and sent out e-mails to all of my friends, and then some. Slowly, but not so surely, the “Never Ignore, Never Forget” relay came to life.
After a wonderful Send-Off event from East High School, we are off and on the road. Finally, our 7 months of planning is paying off! It’s amazing to think just how many people it has taken to pull this off: dozens of individual donors, thousands of dollars, at least 10 all-nighters, and a ton of motivation!
I would like to give a big thanks to Senator Donald Betts Jr., City Councilwoman Lavonta Williams, Interim Superintendent of Schools for USD259 Martin Libhart, and East Principal Ken Thiessen. However, there’s some more important people I need to thank: the hundred or so people that came out to support us and the dozens that showed up an hour and a half early to give us a hand setting up. I just can’t thank you all enough!
We are currently heading up the Butler County Line and Aaron Gurley is a little over halfway finished with his 6 mile leg. I asked him if he had any words he wanted to say from the side of the car and, in his eternal wisdom, he said, “Word.”
It’s hot, but we knew what we were getting ourselves into. Keep us in your thoughts and remember to tell all your friends!
In twelve hours my companions and I will begin our 1,300 mile journey halfway across the country.
In less than half a day, we will take our first steps toward Washington D.C. to raise awareness of genocide still occurring today and to raise funds for those poor souls caught in the midst of these atrocities.
Some may say, “Hey, what are you going to do? You’re only 19 years old! What can you possibly hope to achieve?” Well, myself along with my companions are about to show them what we can do. With over $20,000 of donations already received and all the media attention we’ve already been exposed to, we’ve shown people what we will do.
We know we have to take the initiative to change what’s happening in the world. I believe with every part of my being that one person can change the world in a drastic way. When one person speaks up, another will stand alongside and speak up, too. And then another and another until everyone starts to shout. And then we’ll yell. And then we’ll scream. And we’ll scream until we scream so loud that they’ll have no choice but to listen.
Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this endeavor thus far! Please spread the word about this relay to everyone you know and together we’ll change the world!
