Rewards and Reunions

To be placed in the category “In Case Anyone Cares,” this is the story about how the Hamilton High School “Selfless Spirit Award” came to be.

In each of our lives, we are fortunate to run across good natured people of high character and intelligence, people whose company you enjoy, people who listen as well as they talk, people who capture your confidence enough to exchange one’s inner secrets. I was lucky to meet such a person on the golf course – Jim VanFossen of Anaconda.

Jim and I shared some connections – besides our Anaconda roots, like me, his son went to the Air Force Academy, and we both served in the military during the Vietnam era. We were passionate about our golf even if my game wasn’t in his league. We quickly discovered we had many other life issues in common. Our clubhouse conversations may yet turn into a podcast - “PIN SEEKING AT SEVENTY: a discussion for the “gentlemen” among us - tainted by dubious utility, offering debatable wisdom, yet hopefully, mildly provocative.”

Sucking on our second beer following a sweltering afternoon of golf, Jim made casual mention of an award he spearheads for seniors at Anaconda High School. (I later found out that this initiative is but one of his many charitable activities.) Jim and his classmates call this the “Great Kid Award.” He explained that the award is for someone who might not be a great scholar or premier athlete, but a student who exhibits kindness, empathy, and charity in school and around the community. He shared with me the write-up for the Anaconda award.

This sentiment captured my imagination and inspired me. Elsewhere on these pages, I have written about my disquiet over legacy, fearing that leading a “successful” life isn’t enough. While leaving markers on my children’s lives seems worthy, here perhaps was a way to make a broader impact. Thus was born the “Selfless Spirit Award.”

About this time, Diana Jones (ne’ Pfeifer), the Pied Piper of the Hamilton High School Class of 1971, was pestering me to attend our 50th anniversary class reunion in Hamilton. I feigned recalcitrance, hoping to weasel this award onto the agenda as a class sponsorship idea, thereby constructing a level of anonymity regarding my efforts. With the idea pitched, Diana was quickly on board, convincing the other members of the Reunion Committee to put this to a class vote. Following my presentation at the reunion, the Class of ’71 adopted the award as their own, many of them donating quickly and generously to the cause.

[As an aside, our 50th anniversary reunion reunited members of the legendary rock and roll band, “Rondegothump.” Founded by the class musical savant and lead guitarist Scott Milner, Rondegothump featured Mike Wrobel on bass, Pat Grimes (?) on drums, and the Tambourine Man, yours truly. The group won the eighth-grade talent show and went on to perform a total of one gig before breaking up.]

The following passage is found in both the class presentation materials and the formal award write-up submitted to Hamilton High School administration:

“Essence: Each year, we honor scholastic and athletic achievements among our graduating classes. Award winners work hard for these honors and are rightfully recognized. This award, though, aims at the heart of the matter: kindness. We seek to identify graduating seniors who have defined themselves, not necessarily by academic or athletic excellence, but by kindness and goodness and thoughtfulness and putting others ahead of themselves. We look for a senior who is respectful to support staff as well as teachers, who participates in the classroom, who sits in the lunchroom with the student with no friends, who has a kind word for the outcasts and forgotten ones, who chooses to do the right thing when no one is looking, who sees social media as an outlet for positivity, who works in the shadows, seeking nothing for his/herself, simply out of empathy and care for classmates and others around him or her. We’re looking for kids who make their parents proud, irrespective of grades and athletics, that classmates will remember for their kindness long after they leave Hamilton High School. This award seeks to identify such students, honor them, and hold them up as exemplars for the kind of community, society, and country we strive to be.”

My hope is that through this award, we can influence a small portion of the next generation, branching out to the ones that follow, to build an expanding pyramid of kindness beginning in our small patch of the country. Those that believe in the essence of this award cling to Marcus Aurelius’ vision that the fundamental nature of the human species is kindness.

This will be a perpetual $500 award with the first presentation scheduled for May 2022. Along with the monetary gift, each winner will receive a personalized memento (paperweight). The recipient’s name will also be inscribed on both the paperweight and a plaque that will hang on the walls of Hamilton High School. Funding has been guaranteed by the author although donations will not be refused.