I am happy to share more aspects of my personal story during the presentations as it relates to the materials. In short, I was born in San Diego in 1965 and moved around a lot as a child. I was always the outsider trying to fit into the new crowd of kids. This was most prevalent when I began sailing in St. Pete, Fl in the mid-70's. We didn't belong to the main yacht club and didn't have fancy cars. I only became a problem when I began winning. Its easy to like whoever comes in last. 1976 & 1977 were the best years after placing 2nd @ 1976 Nationals & 2nd in the 1977 Florida State Championships. I was 1st alternate on the 1977 US National Junior Sailing Team. Worlds were to be held in France or Turkey that year. I unfortunately didn't have a boat to use for the 2nd of 3 trials weekends, hmmmmmm?!
We moved again after a few years and was the outsider in preppie Connecticut. The outsider issue was definitely amplified. My first day of school was picture day and I couldn't have looked more out of place. They wore boat shoes, but never stepped on a boat. The bullying was pretty bad there and I was knocked unconscious during finals of my freshman year. Luckily, I had a few close friends and started taking tennis serious. I was thrilled to move to Colorado and continued playing tennis and learning to ski. This was a personal challenge after breaking my leg in CT on the 3rd night ever skiing. I attended Columbine high school, class of '83, and joined the ski club. I was left to learn on my own as everybody was so good. Unfortunately, our school became a focal point in our country's history and a driving force behind STAHRS now. Dave Sanders was a teacher and coach when I was there in the early 80's.
College brought new adventures, including learning to play racquetball, rather than just playing tennis in a box in the winters. I came out of college a B player and rose up through the A's and began teaching at Lakewood Athletic Club. I was ready to play A's and Open, but never played another tournament match after our son was born and we moved to Scotland a year later. Two years later our daughter was born in Paisley.
After a dozen years of working with mentally ill adults and developmentally disabled adults in residential support and vocational training, we returned to Denver for graduate school. There were many Columbine students in the freshman psych class for which a was a graduate assistant. It was very moving to help them move ahead after such a tragedy. We discussed many aspects of their experiences and worked on anxiety reduction to help alleviate the negative affects of the trauma.
Graduate school introduced me to the field of domestic violence and after 16 years of private practice and contract work, STAHRS was born on Valentine's Day 2018. It seemed appropriate with our mission. I still try to play competitive racquetball (more doubles than singles) after 2 hip replacements (airports are fun), and will always grieve that we're never as good as we used to be!!!
SP8 - the wooden beauty
She was a George Larimer Pram. I loved that boat!!! Wow, I was short & skinny back then.... It's easy to see how difficult it was to survive the tropical storm on day 2 of the 1977 Florida Stat Championships. David Himmel was the only sailor out of twelve to survive the first race of the two scheduled that day. I had a massive lead, 12 points after the first day of racing (4 races), going in, but couldn't physically the conditions. I can still see the moment and remember making the decision to quit that race. I will never quit again after taking 2nd place by 1/4 of a point due to my DNF. Patience is not giving up, it's waiting for the right time - such as launching STAHRS.
