Start of something beautiful

(2002 alum Willie Allen welcomes the Spring class to the CQ family. Photo by Michelle Hedenskoog.)

I confidently introduced myself to my fellow Chipsters and members of the staff with whom I had been corresponding for the past few months. But then I began to come down a bit as we sat for dinner. The dip was brief because before I could allow it to settle, my insecurities were articulated, validated and eliminated at once. (St. Petersburg Times photographer) Willie Allen began speaking and shot confidence right into my spirit as he confessed a time when he asked himself, “Am I good enough?” And that’s all I needed. What I initially mistook as anxiety in Allen’s voice really was restraint from emotions he felt profoundly. Allen was looking at his family -- the Chipsters and Freedom Forum staff -- in much the same way I had looked at my family a month ago at my brother’s wedding. There, I cried for the first time since high school. In our respective observations, we were seeing the start of something beautiful that touched us. I admire his sensitivity. I thanked him for his words as if he had written them specifically for me.

-- David Lipscomb, University of Maryland, Press and Sun-Bulletin, Binghamton, N.Y.