Well, this is pretty exciting! My first ever "Inside MENC" blog posting!
So many directions that I could go with this... hmm... hmm... where to start, where to start...
Ok, since today officially concludes my first week as Government Relations & Outreach Director (yay!), a quick little anecdote about how, once upon a time, I got my start both in politics and in music education... at the very same time!
Ahem:
As anyone who knows and works with me here at MENC will tell you, I am a devoted lover of ALL kinds of music, but sadly, not a musician myself (you're going to need to just trust me on this one--asking me to prove it would be forcing a very cruel fate upon yourself). Anyways, when I was in 5th Grade, I decided to run for school president (my very first campaign experience!). All candidates were required to enlist a teacher to act as their campaign manager, and I had always thought that our school music teacher was (naturally) pretty cool (I'd also caught her breaking it down to Prince's Purple Rain on a couple of occasions after school hours when, clearly, she didn't think that anyone else was around), so, after much deliberation, I ultimately decided to ask her to join Team CBLW. Long story short, my campaign theme song, chosen by my music teacher/campaign manager, ended up being "Baby I'm A Star" (seriously? a PRINCE song is appropriate for a little kid's first time on the campaign trail??), and ultimately, by some miracle, I ended up winning that little election! So there you have it. That's how I got my start. The moral of the story, of course, is that music teachers are terrific, both for teaching music, and for assisting with achieving hard-nosed political victories!
Oh, and they seem to like Prince.
A lot.
Now a little bit about the rest of the "fabo" Government Relations & Outreach Department here at MENC...
SKJ and HLS.
Ahhh SKJ and HLS, what would I do without either one of you? The hardest workin' people in showbiz! Everyone in this department definitely has their role. SKJ is smart, great with people (see amazing TNAP successes), wonderfully honest (especially when my socks don't match), and a truly dedicated, hard worker (see amazing TNAP successes). Then there's HLS. HLS keeps us going around here. If I don't know how to do something, chances are, HLS has already figured it out. HLS is efficient, incredibly eager to learn, consistently cheery (SO necessary on a day when the rest of the department is grumpy), and much like SKJ, very upfront (again, see the mismatched socks thing).
So that's a little bit about our department! We're a very happy, fun-loving bunch :-)
And now... in conclusion... here are the FIRST ever...
"Government Relations & Outreach Department Album Picks of the Week!!!"
SKJ: Various Artists - Hairspray (Soundtrack to the Motion Picture)
HLS: Maroon 5 - It Won't Be Soon Before Long
CBLW: Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger
*We miss you Anne!!
