Learning
Weekly update #304 11/16/2025 to 11/22/2025
Sixty-two years ago yesterday President Kennedy was to deliver a speech that included the following line, "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." Due to being assassinated earlier that day he never had a chance to speak them, but I believe he was correct. Before that though, let me share some of my week serving as mayor of the best small town in America.
Congratulations to the team at Seymour High School for another successful Dance Marathon supporting Riley Hospital for Children. Year after year, they seem to raise the bar just a little more and support the life saving work at Riley Hospital. While visiting the event this year, I learned the SHS Dance Marathon executive committee is made up of eleven members with roughly 200 members overall. During the annual event they are also joined by IU students who help keep the fun going. This year, they raised $32,866. Thank you to everyone who sponsored the event or helped a student make their goal with a donation.
This past week, myself and part of our staff had a chance to volunteer for the Community Diner of Seymour. We helped prepare meatloaf, salad, and fruit salad along with some take home fruits. Each Monday, they serve over 200 meals in a to-go format for those who are hungry in our community. While cost varies each week they are proud to regularly keep the cost to less than $1 per meal. They have wonderful partnerships with several sources around the community, but I am sure if you can spare enough for ten, twenty, or even a whole night's worth of meals it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you to all the volunteers for everything you do and thank you for allowing us to help with last week’s meal.
This past week, the Mayor’s Youth Council had a chance to hear a presentation from Jackie Rivera about the program she developed, “Limitless Leaders.” They followed that up by sharing their group homework research on things to do here in Seymour. I always enjoy seeing their perspectives and looking for what can grow from the conversations. I know at least one member has followed up with some conversation at the school, and who knows, maybe the next Parks and Recreation event could come out of a MYC meeting. Thank you to the members for being engaged members of our community.
To open this week, I shared a line from President John F. Kennedy’s notes for a speech he never got to deliver, "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." While I now have a “to be read” pile next to my bed and try to start and finish each day with at least ten pages, that wasn’t always the case. Over the years, I have found topics of interest and read more than my fair share of biographies. Since my first election in 2015, I have tried to expand my choices to areas that I thought would help me grow and serve my community better. From trying to understand what makes people love where they live with titles like For the Love of Cities by Peter Kageyama to reading Soundtracks by Jon Acuff to work on overthinking, I have definitely read some ideas that challenged my previous thoughts. While today I have focused on learning for leadership, I could have just as easily focused on learning in general because as Abigail Adams said, "Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence."