Greetings to all in this holiday season!
As 2019 is coming to a close, I am, once again, able to
focus on the many blessings in my life.
I’ve been fortunate in this past year to be able to do some more
traveling. I continue to meet people
along the way who share some of my same passions and have had to opportunity to
grow in those passions.
In the running world, 2019 brought me another new state in
my quest to run a race in all 50 states.
This past spring I ran the “Run with the Cows” 5K in Kansas. This brings me to 36 states in which I have
run races, with four New England states still to run, eight western states,
along with Alaska and Hawaii. I have not
yet made any running plans for 2020, but hope to get another state or two under
my running shoes.
2019 also saw me continue my exploration of competitive
ballroom dancing. I traveled to
Minneapolis in January to compete in the SnowBall Dancesport Challenge. In February I had surgery, which kept me out
of dance competitions for a while.
However, by mid-year I was back at it, competing
in Nashville, Cincinnati, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Columbus. While
in Cincinnati I placed as one of the top ten students in the competition and
won the Top Bronze Student Award for the second straight year.
I am currently in second place among the Top Male Student
Competitors in the Global Dancesport Series, while my instructor, Emily
Mertens, is in second place in the Top Female Teacher category. We set a goal to try to compete in all fourteen competitions that are part
of that series. To work towards that
goal we will be competing again in Minneapolis in January. Then in March we will compete in Las Vegas
and Detroit. April will take us to San
Francisco and Los Angeles, then to Atlanta in May. In June we will travel to Denver, then to New
York City over the 4th of July weekend. We will finish off the series traveling to
Nashville for the Volunteer State Dancesport competition in July. I’m joined In the Top 5 by some amazing
dancers from across the country, all who have been dancing competitively for
several years. It’s been fun meeting other
competitors as I’ve traveled the country.
On the work front, things continue to grow at the Northwest
Regional Emergency Communications Center.
We currently dispatch for 3 police departments and 3 fire departments,
in addition to handling all the 9-1-1 calls that come from those communities
and cell phone 9-1-1 calls for the northwest side of Franklin County. In July we will take on dispatching responsibilities for another city, handling both their police and fire department dispatching. Honestly, I’d be lying if I said that I was
excited about taking on another city. I
have spent much of the past few years learning new cities and new ways of doing
things. But part of this job, like any
job, is dealing with change. So, I will
deal with this change and embrace it.
The job can be stressful (hence the reason I run and dance) but it can
also be rewarding. It still takes a
little piece of my soul every time I get that call from someone who has lost a
loved a one. But a piece of that is
restored every time I am able to help someone or save a life. I’ve got at least six more years before I can
retire and the good still outweighs the bad, so I’m happy with the impact that
I have. Now if I could just get the
chief to let me keep the beard….
2020 looks to continue to be an exciting year for me. I hope it will be the same for you. Here’s wishing you a joyous holiday season and
many blessings for the New Year!
Chris
