Pedaling an article by our Bicycle Adventure founder

By Chris Johnson
Director of communications

When I was in college at Georgia Southwestern here in Americus, I made one of the brilliant academic decisions of my career in the spring quarter of 1990 – I dropped geology for tennis.

How was that brilliant? One, I was not only a high school tennis standout, but I taught tennis lessons during college to earn money to eat from the four major food groups – pepperoni, extra cheese, Meatlovers and thin crust. Two, this move would easily boost my grade point average to an actual number. And, three, geology is the study of Geos and I knew Chevy would stop making them any day. I was right.

Funny thing is, I was way better at tennis than the “professor” for the tennis class. I’m sure that made his job quite interesting whenever he sobered up and tried to teach it. Actually, I guess it made it quite easy to teach somebody something when they already knew how to do it. It’d be like me trying to teach iambic pentameter to that Willie Shakespeare kid.

As director of communications at The Fuller Center for Housing, one of my goals is to eventually run myself out of a job. I want everyone to become master communicators so that I’m no longer needed. After all, communications, like fundraising, is EVERYBODY’S job at The Fuller Center.

Ryan Iafigliola is one of those people who doesn’t need my help often … or at all when it comes to his own writing – as evidenced below in the three pages I’ve posted from the magazine of his high school alma mater (Padua Franciscan High School in Parma, Ohio). Be sure to read it, and take notes. The kid knows what he’s doing.

Of course, if I can get everyone to communicate so effectively, I will indeed run myself out of a job and have to undertake a more challenging mission, such as trying to stop people in the corporate world from writing things like: “Enclosed, please find the enclosed enclosure.”

So, please learn from folks like Ryan. But not too quickly. I’m not eager to go back into the corporate world anytime soon!

And when you get through reading Ryan’s article, click here to learn about next year’s very different Bicycle Adventure!

 “Article from Fall 2011 issue of the Paduan magazine, copyright 2011 Padua Franciscan High School.  Reprinted with permission.”