In this episode, I have the opportunity to speak with a man who worked with students in, perhaps, one of the most challenging environments in the country. Before he came to Momence, Jack Richards taught in an Alaskan community where the only packaged meat he purchased was bacon. Everything else was freshly caught. Hard work was in no short supply, but neither were deeply impoverished children a thousand miles from what you and I might consider a proper metropolitan area. A native Midwesterner raised in Chicago gives Jack as divergent a look from the great Northern Tundra of Alaska as most could imagine, and anyone who can weather that kind of environmental diversity has something pretty special to offer. 

Jack is one of those people who may not have taken the most direct route into teaching, but it is apparent in his expression of heart for people and, particularly, for young people, and for the game-changing potential of education, that he is right exactly he belongs. If you’ve met Jack, you already know it, but he is a master relationship builder. Someone who takes an interest in you and in doing so, signals a preparedness to join you on your journey. I think the kids in his charge feel that preparedness and I suspect that quality that will not only serve him well in his administrative career but in the lives of, perhaps, thousands of Momence students who will pass through those halls to which he so regularly seeks his escape from state reports and desk duty behind the administrative role. If you haven’t yet met Jack, do yourself a favor and go introduce yourself. You’re going to like him and I think you’ll find the same kind of instant connection I suspect the students of Momence already have with Mr. Richards.