Good evening District 27. I see our South Dakota Little League Champions from Sioux Falls came up short today (4 to 6) against Missouri and will need to play against Iowa in the elimination bracket to get another shot at Missouri on Friday. Hopefully, the team will not get discouraged from today’s loss by taking advantage of their competitive spirit and turn it around.
Yesterday, I shared with you in my blog post how I did not excel in athletics and took it upon myself to focus on academics in the latter years of my youth. At an early age, I have always enjoyed reading, writing, mathematics, science, art, and history. I will admit that I had good teachers to support and encourage me along the way.
In 1980, I was in the sixth grade when my oldest sibling graduated from high school. I remember attending her graduation at Nash Gym on the campus of Yankton College. It was my first time attending a graduation ceremony. I sat on the side bleachers and had a good view of her class walking into the gymnasium while the graduation march Pomp and Circumstance performed by the orchestra played in the background. While her class processed down the aisle, I noticed some, but not all, of the students wore what looked like a medallion around their necks. I thought, “I wonder why some students are wearing them and some are not?” I later learned that the high school ranked each student academically based on the cumulative sum of the assigned GPA for each class multiplied by the number of credits received for the class. The ten highest-ranked students would receive a medal to be worn at graduation based on the above-described criterion. I made up my mind that day that I wanted one of those medals and would do whatever it took to get one.
Posted is a photo of the medal I received that I wore at my high school graduation for being ranked 2 out of 213 students as shown on my transcript based on seven semesters.
Throughout my years in high school, I spent many hours at night studying while others were excelling in sports, hanging out in the mall, or going to movies with friends. I did not have this opportunity. My parents could not afford to have their sons and daughters driving three vehicles up and down the road to participate in after-school sports because we had chores waiting for us when we got home. As a result, I had no choice but to choose a path that would benefit me in the long term by focusing on academics. I don’t regret this because, in the end, I greatly benefited from it. After all, it allowed me to secure multiple academic scholarships to attend the college of my choice which I was unable to afford without financial support through work-study, Pell Grants, student loans, and academic scholarships.
I share this story with you because I am a dedicated and hardworking individual who after setting a goal is determined to persevere through the most challenging of circumstances such as those described above to achieve that goal. I am a person who will not easily give up, quit in the middle of a job, or get discouraged and move on to something else. People who know me can count on me to finish a job once it has been assigned to me. Sometimes, I may not like a given job, but I am disciplined and I will always do my best when given a task. Much like my teachers in high school who expected each student to give their best, if elected to be your state senator, please know that I will give 100% effort in representing the voters of this district. This is what the voters expect and deserve. Anything less than this is...unacceptable. God bless.
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