Sean C. Morgan
A group of 27 young people spent Friday kayaking around Foster Lake – learning about leadership.
At stops around the lake, the youths heard from various speakers, including high school senior Madelyn Neuschwander, Linn County Commissioner Will Tucker, Chief Judge of the Ore-gon Court of Appeals Jim Egan and retired Sweet Home Schools Supt. Larry Horton.
The event, the Sweet Home Rural Youth Leadership Summit, was organized by the city’s Youth Advisory Council, “to encourage young leaders to be more involved in their community” while showcasing Sweet Home’s natural beauty, said Sarah Hewitt, a member of the YAC.
“I love hearing the speakers,” Hewitt said. “It’s really interesting to hear their different stories and how they came into their position. It’s just really encouraging.”
Sweet Home Schools Supt. Tom Yahraes followed the group in a drift boat and helped keep an eye out for any young kayakers who might have trouble.
“This is really great for our kids getting out here and partaking in Sweet Home’s natural environment,” Yahraes said. “Then you add wisdom (from the speakers) and the physical activity. It’s going to be a memory.”
The youths will remember what they learned that day, he added.
The event was open to incoming seventh-graders through college freshmen. About half of the participants were in the seventh and the eighth grades. Nearly all of them are from Sweet Home, although a couple were from nearby communities.
The YAC wanted to focus on getting students involved at a younger age, Hewitt said.
The next time the YAC runs an event like this, she said, organizers will try to get more participation from other communities.
The group started out from Shea Point in kayaks borrowed from members of the Sweet Home community. They traveled initially to Calkins Park, gathering around the dock in their kayaks to hear Tucker, who talked about three keys to becoming a successful community leader.
Tucker told the youths how he ran away as a teen to Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. He had been a farm kid unable to get involved in school. After seeing the darker side of life there, he was able to negotiate with his parents and get involved in sports. Facing the draft during the Vietnam War, Tucker joined the Navy.
After leaving the Navy, he went to work at Hewlett Packard folding cardboard boxes eight to 14 hours per day. Soon, he was involved in opening a plant in Singapore. Meanwhile, he served in the Army Reserves in Oregon. After 29 years with HP, he and a group of employees broke away and formed a new company, although its longevity was limited by the economic fallout from the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001.
At age 55, he was jobless with just a high school diploma, although he had taken numerous college courses and earned certifications over the years. Connections he had made over the years opened a door into a rewarding stint in real estate prior to becoming county commissioner.
Tucker said he had “a center inside” that made him want to do more, to be involved in high school sports, for example. He urged the youths to find that center inside of them, whether it’s the Holy Spirit or just “your gut.”
“If it tells you you’re doing something wrong, listen to it,” Tucker said. At the same time, he told the teens to live their lives and take advantage of opportunities like going to Europe or Youth With a Mission, to show up and get involved in student leadership, sports, chamber of commerce and the community.
Third, he told them, find friends who serve as a sort of conscience, and help connect people to their communities and create opportunities.
The youths got out of their kayaks at Lewis Creek Park for a snack and drinks and gathered around Egan, who told them he was a juvenile delinquent who didn’t do well in school. He didn’t get Cs in high school. Sometimes, he didn’t even get Ds. His parents’ education ended in the eighth grade.
Adults around him believed in him along the way, ultimately helping him to attend Oregon State University.
As a young parent in college, Egan went to work for Smokecraft at night. After two years of getting good grades, he received a scholarship to Willamette University. After moving to Salem, he drove a school bus.
Upon graduation, he had no place to go. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps and applied to law school. He didn’t have the best grades, “but they let me in,” Egan said. He ended up being a tutor for other law students.
After the military, he put out hundreds of applications, looking for a position at a law firm. An Albany attorney put him to work as a clerk, and he spent 25 years there, eventually serving as chairman of the Bar Association of Linn County.
Serving in the Middle East on reserve deployments, Egan was in charge of younger lawyers, he said. They had questions, and he always seemed to be able to answer them, a result, he realized, of 25 years in the business.
When a Circuit Court judge position opened in Linn County, Egan called the governor and asked for the job, and ironically, the former juvenile delinquent became a “juvenile judge.” Since then, he moved on to the Court of Appeals, and today, he is the chief judge of that court.
As leaders, he said, they will have the say over the lives of others.
He told them not to forget that others in leadership positions in the past gave him a break, Egan said, and they didn’t hold accountable forever a juvenile delinquent for the worst 10 minutes of his life.