It’s been about five years now that I’ve had this postcard pinned up in my office. I’ve kept it for its nice graphic. I’ve kept it because it’s appropriate to my profession on at last two different levels. I did not keep it because I figured it might one day spawn a story idea!
But when it came time to develop this November’s issue of @St. Norbert, I was bent on including a story about giving thanks – nice for Thanksgiving, I thought. Who, I asked myself … who, on campus, says thank you. My thoughts went straight to our fundraisers in College Advancement and, most especially, to Dee Geurts-Bengtson.
Which brings me to the third reason I kept the “Smart Women” card. Dee sent it to me with a word of thanks for some small thing, long-forgotten. What I have not forgotten was the conversation we’d had a few months before that. Dee’s about the warmest and most positive person you’ll ever hope to meet, and she’d told me about some advice she’d received early in life, and has followed ever since.
The advice was simple: Don’t let a week go by without writing three notes of thanks. Dee told me she’d developed the habit, and it had been, simply, life-changing.
It’s a privilege to include Dee’s story in today’s issue of @St. Norbert. Intern Anna Miller ’15 did an awesome reporting job on this story and, it’s worth noting, after Anna interviewed Dee she received a thank-you note in her turn, for giving her the chance to tell her story. And so did I – for sending Anna along.
I was going to end this entry by saying, it’s surprising how a small thing can make a great story. But, on reflection, I think this may have been no small thing at all.
