I can still remember eleven years ago being pulled into my counselor’s office at Mohawk Elementary. It was me and three boys. Mr. Gaskill told us that we had all been nominated to attend a leadership school in the summer called DeBusk, but only three of us could go and someone would have to be an alternate. I didn’t have long to worry about not being selected because he quickly told me that since I was the only girl nominated, I was guaranteed to be one of the three. As a fairly high-stress ten-year-old, I was nervous about going off to something basically by myself, but I knew that my third grade teacher Mrs. Reed taught there so I thought I would give it a try.
I attended DeBusk when it was still called leadership school, not camp, and when it was still four weeks long rather than two. I can recall so much about it – writing in my journal every day, watching a biography of Harry Truman, visiting the Holocaust Museum, becoming a founding father in the Constitutional Convention. What really stand out are the friendships I made during such a short time. I went home and cried because I wouldn’t be seeing them again. Luckily, I was wrong! Some of those people followed me through junior high, high school, and even into college. DeBusk was my first venture into leadership, and it jumpstarted so many things I have accomplished since then.
Most people’s DeBusk stories end there. Mine doesn’t. In 2005, Jan Reed, that same third grade teacher, called and asked if I would be interested in being her college intern for the program as, after 14 years teaching, she had become the director. I had just graduated as salutatorian from Pearce High School and was headed to Texas A&M University in the fall. With a blank summer for the first time in my life, I jumped at the chance to go back to something I had loved so much as a kid! Before we started, I thought I would spend the two weeks at camp, and that would be the end. Again, I was wrong. I enjoyed that two weeks more than I ever would have imagined! Watching the 90 students go from scared stiff on Day One to loving it by Day Three to having to be pried away from their new friends on the final day was such a wonderful experience for me. The students who are sent to DeBusk are incredibly unique, and I still remember names and faces from that first summer. By the end, I had a mission – get Dr. Reed to ask me back for another summer.
I accomplished that goal and was back in 2006 for another round. This time, I got to spend more time in the classrooms, watching seven of the most dynamic teachers do more for students than I had ever seen before. My life plan at this point was to pursue a career in law, but my contact with these kids made me stop and think. Was that plan what I really wanted or was my whole outlook shifting to teaching? It didn’t take me long to find that answer. On the last day, I knew I wouldn’t be able to come back the next year as I was studying abroad in Poland. The huge knot in my stomach and the immense effort to choke back tears told me one thing – I wanted to be a teacher. Everything changed for me because of DeBusk.
After my summer in Poland, I was back at DeBusk (I had planted my best friend in my position the year before so I would be assured to get my place back!). It was another outstanding camp, but it was this year, 2009, that really allowed me to see every aspect of DeBusk, and all that it does for everyone involved.
I had graduated from A&M and had my very own teaching job in Richardson lined up for the fall. The new director, Liz Fleskes, changed my position with DeBusk from college intern to teacher intern. There was very little time I spent outside the classrooms, running from one of the five rooms to another. With every biography I watched the kids do, I saw untapped creativity come to life. I watched lawyers-in-the-making passionately debate over who was to blame in the “Case of the Bicycle Blunder.” I heard insightful questions that I didn’t know ten year olds had in them. And I knew their bonding was real when they started coming up to me in droves the second week asking why it had to end, why it wasn’t four weeks long like when I did it, why they had to be apart from all their new friends.
Everything came full circle for me this year when I had the chance to be the leadership guest speaker. In preparing, I found the evaluation my DeBusk teacher had written of me. The traits he saw in me then are the same traits my bosses and professors had written about in the reference letters that helped me get my teaching job. I knew that all my years with DeBusk had developed me into something I might not have otherwise become. I was able to tell the kids to stick with the traits that they have now because even at ten, they have what they need already to live up to their full potential (of course, I gave them bubble gum to really drive the “sticky” point home). I looked out at them not wondering what they would accomplish someday but knowing that they will all do something to make the world a better place. With the inspiration of five teachers that I hope to be like one day, 90 kids have a foundation from which to live out every dream they have. And I have gotten to be a part of that…five times!
I thought about spending my summer in Washington, D.C. but missing DeBusk just wasn’t something I wanted to do. I can’t thank the DeBusk Foundation enough for all that it has done for students over the past eighteen years. My eleven years with it, from student to graduate to intern (and hopefully to teacher eventually!), have been phenomenal. I hope students for years and years to come will be able to experience what I have!
