He is the Maryland Student Service Alliance, Maryland State Department of Education's Blue Ribbon Winner of the 2000 Principal Service-Learning Leadership Recognition Award. I am honored and humbled to be standing here before you today. Honored because of the recognition that my school has worked so hard to achieve. Humbled because as I look around this room, I see many who have done so much to further the cause of student service-learning in our state. Many years ago I had a college professor, rest his soul, who offered the following advice.
Leadership is a tough thing - an almost impossible thing without willing and committed followers.
I've been blessed with a staff and faculty that come to work almost every day with our students' best interests at heart. One of the things that I've learned about leadership is that sometimes it is best to just get out of the way and let good things happen. Working with dedicated and committed staff makes it easy to lend support, and I'd like to thank Elissa Streaker, Gateway School's service learning coordinator, for her tireless efforts in seeing that our staff has the appropriate training and vision to provide quality service-learning opportunities for our students. I'd also like to thank Carroll County's Service-Learning Coordinator, Estelle Sanzenbacher, for her financial support and enthusiasm, and for nominating me for this honor. And finally, I'd like to thank the staff and students at Gateway School for their efforts in student service-learning.