President Bruce C. Hafen:
In the summer of 1970, about 30 miles from here in Shelly, Idaho, a six-foot-seven athletic young man, 16 years old, was involved in a tragic accident. His dreams of becoming a great athlete—he thought—were dashed. We know since then that Kurt Brinkman's life has been one of the really great stories that we could know about, of someone who has demonstrated the greatness that champions are made of. And we're very glad that Kurt could be with us today. He's a graduate of Rick's College. He came here about two years after the accident. As I said earlier, he met Bonnie at Ricks [College]. They've since gone to BYU, where he has graduated, and they now live with their two children in American Fork, where he's the manager of the Deseret Industries store there.
You probably have read about him in the information you've seen on the campus this week. So, let me just mention that when he won that Boston Marathon, that wasn't just the wheelchair part of that race. Marathon experts tell me that at 26 miles in that particular race, it's really a very fair test between wheelchair runners and other runners. Kurt Brinkman has finished with the best time, ever, in the Boston Marathon, not only of wheelchair runners, but any runners. And we think that that's the kind of person we're proud to claim as an alumnus of Ricks College. Besides that, he's a fine Latter-day Saint, and we're delighted now to turn the devotional assembly over to Kurt Brinkman.
Curits Brinkman:
I'm not sorry to say I'm a little bit shorter than most people. That shortness has done some good things for me in the last few years. I look back on that now with a wonder as to what I might have done if I had not lost my legs, what I would be like, and whether I would be as strong in the church as I've been, and whether I’d have the choice family that I've got
now. Here, I'm rushing right into it, and I'm not ready. Let me tell you a couple other things first.
You know, I remember when I was here at Ricks College and I was sitting up there among you watching the speakers, I at one time wondered, or thought, or feared what it would be like to be up here just to give a prayer. I never even considered talking in front of a group this large. But to even give a prayer, I thought, boy, that would be the most frightening thing in the whole world. The first time I ever talked to a group, it was 1976, in Lethbridge, Canada. And I talked to a group of about 800 people. And I was supposed to talk—I was the feature speaker—and I was supposed to talk for 35 minutes. And I was petrified. I mean, if you can imagine, for the first time speaking in front of 800 people who you've never met. In fact, so much so that the fellow who was sitting next to me, the chairman of the thing who got it going, said to me and my wife and a few other people afterwards that, well, to be blunt, he said, “I could have filled a whole glass full of sweat if I would have had that glass hanging under his chin.” I was that scared. I don't perspire quite that bad now when I speak in front of a group, but I want to tell you that I'm excited to be here. I've had so many great experiences. In fact, a good deal of my adjusting to my situation came to me only because I attended Ricks College here. It offered me a great deal. And I'm sure that most of you, and I hope all of you feel that, maybe not exactly the same way I do, but feel that spirit here. And as I look across the audience here and compare Ricks College even to Brigham Young University, which is a great school and it's a church school, but it seems as though the spirit is just so much brighter here. And that's, I think I seem to remember that when I was here before. It's an excellent opportunity to attend Ricks College, but when I was 6’, 7’’ and 16 years old, I had two things on my mind.
One was to get rid of this disease I had in one of my knees, which was Osgood-Schlatter's disease. I'd go out in basketball practice when we'd finished up doing our running. I remember one occasion sitting down in the outside locker room after practice, and I sat there for about 45 minutes before I could finally get to the point where I could stand up again and walk into the locker room and get showered. And by that time, everybody had gone. And so, I was there by myself to feel so frustrated about the back of my knees always hurt. And then the other thing, the other concern I had on my mind was that I didn't want to be drafted. Boy, I always said, I'll do anything, so I don't have to be drafted. Well, I wasn't really thinking about losing my legs, and that's not why I don't have them.
I don't know why, but I decided to climb a power pole. And I got 25 feet up in the air, standing on one of the cross braces there, thinking that I was so great because I was able to get up on top of this pole and look out over the farm there. I was out on a farm where I was supposed to be moving the irrigation pipe, just west of Shelley, Idaho Falls, and I looked around and everything looked so great, and I could see all over the lavas and see the other fellows that I worked with moving their lines, and I could see these wires up here, and I would stay away from the wires. Yeah, it wasn't very bright because I didn't realize that electricity is a lot like we are. You know, it likes to take the path of least resistance whenever possible, and sometimes we do that. Well, the electricity did that. The electricity can arc and arced at me. or it jumped at me. It depends on the amount of voltage as to how far it can jump, and I think it was probably about a foot that it jumped, and it hit me right at my knees. And it literally blew my knees apart. It didn't blow my legs off, but it just blew them apart. And they were burnt so bad that there was just nothing that they could do, that the doctors could do. In fact, I went to the Idaho Falls Hospital, and there they said, the only thing that we can do is to amputate his legs now. There might be a possible chance to save him if we were to send him down to Salt Lake, which is where is one of the top plastic surgeons in the country. And that's where I went very quickly. And as I arrived there, they tried to save them. In fact, it was eight days before the second leg had to be amputated. But both of them did have to be amputated, both of them above the knee. And at the time I was extremely frustrated with the whole situation. Discouraged and angry and bitter at everyone and everything because it was everyone else's fault that I didn't have legs anymore. It was everyone's fault that I wasn't getting better. And I didn't get better for quite some time. In fact, I think it was more than two months because the doctors could finally say he's going to make it. All that time, going through the troubles that I was going through. And I blamed everybody. And I think one of the people I blamed the most was our Father in Heaven. I kind of assumed it was His fault for my getting up there. I look back on that now and I think I've changed my opinion significantly. We, a lot of times, do things that we know that we probably shouldn't, or that might not be the wisest in the world to do, and that's exactly what I did. I was the one that got up on that pole. No one told me to. I wasn't dared. My Father in Heaven didn't give me a word of inspiration, and say, “Kurt, climb that pole.”
Nothing like that happened. I did it because I was a knot-head. But our Father in Heaven made sure that I still had a life to live. And this is real special to me, because beyond a shadow of doubt, I know that if it wouldn’t have been for my Father in Heaven, that I would be dead. I was 25 feet up, and after the three bursts of electricity and the circuit breaker finally cut the electricity off, my heart was no longer functioning, and I was dead. And this was given to me, or I was told to my parents through a doctor who was the first one that really gave an opinion as to what was going on with me and what kind of effect might happen, or what kind of effect that would have on my life, if it was to be a very normal life.
And while I was up on that pole—let's consider that this table here is the pole—and I am on this side, and directly below me was a pump that was about two half feet in diameter and about 5 feet tall, and this pump was made out of cast iron. And likewise, on either was a gate valve made out of iron, and other things, there was a main line, and different things like that. Undoubtedly, if I would’ve fallen in either of these three directions, it would have killed me because I would have landed on that, probably crushed most everything inside my body. So, I'm sure that I would be dead. And all the wires and transformers are over here. And as I fell, as electricity finally was cut off and half the power in the valley of Shelley went out.
Don't ever say that you don't have a lot of power to do things. I tell you, I never thought I could, but I did. That's not the best way to get that kind of power.
But as I fell, I fell around the pole, through the wires, through the transformers on the other side of the pole about 20 feet on the other side of the pole in the only wet area, within about a quarter of a mile, and that wet area was about four or five, I guess, maybe 7 feet in diameter. I landed on my chest, face down, which was enough to start my heart beating again. I landed in the water, and you know how to take a steak out of the oven—maybe you don't know—but as you take a steak out of the oven, it's still cooking, it's sizzling. And that's what was going on with my legs. Well, because I landed in the water, it helped to slow down that burning process. The Lord was watching out for me. He decided it wasn't quite my time to leave this earth. And I'm glad he decided that, because I definitely found a great deal of joy in my life since that time. Although while I was laying there, I looked up and I saw one of my legs, and I knew what kind of situation I was in and that I would never walk again on those legs, and I wanted to die.
I said two things while I was lying there. One was “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” and I suppose I was probably saying that to myself, maybe to my parents, maybe to the guys who were around me.
I worked with a crew of seven other fellows, obviously my ages of 13 and 15. And that's an awful young age to see one of your best friends laying there with his legs, with not much of his legs at all. And so that's one of the things I said, and the other was, “Let me die,” and because of the pain, because of knowing that I wouldn't be able to walk again.
Well, I look back on that now, and those times when I was depressed in the hospital, I was angry at everybody, any time my mother would come in, my father would come in, I'd probably yell at and tell him that nothing was being done to help me to make things easier for me. While I look back on that now and I definitely realize that I was blessed to be alive. I remember, let me take one of other thing in reference to the hospital stay, and that's after I got out of intensive care, and that was quite a while that I was in there. I was put in a private room, and I during my stay in my private room, my digestive system quit. And I was already 73 pounds, and so I wasn't in that great a shape. And when my digestive system quit, what that meant was I couldn't have anything orally, I couldn't take anything into my stomach, my digestive system, and I had to be fed, so to speak, through my veins. When you get fed through the veins, that means you get a little bit of glucose, you know, that is coming out of the IV and that was the extent of it, so I'm sure I wouldn't live very long if I had to have had that continue for the short lifetime that I would have had. But my father came in, and with another member of the church, another member of the priesthood, he gave me a blessing, a blessing that everything would be well.
The second day went by, and the third day went by and the fourth, and nothing had happened. And my stomach was getting pumped during this period of time, so I had a tube running through into my mouth down into my stomach. And for some reason my nose started bleeding out very badly, and so much so that they packed both nostrils in order to prevent that bleeding.
Can you imagine yourselves for just a second with both nostrils completely shut off and your mouth open, having to breathe through your mouth? I mean, you've fasted for a while, you know a little bit what it's like. Well, picture that going on for another four days. And you get awful dry, especially when you can't breathe through your nose and you have to breathe through your mouth.
Well, finally, the nurse—and my mom probably knows this story better than I do; she’ll probably be shaking her head saying, “No, that’s not really the way it was...” --But I’m gonna tell you the way I remember.
But finally, they said, OK, we’re going to let you have a couple of ice. I'm going to give you one of these little chips of ice every once in a while, and you can dampen your mouth a little bit. And the way I like to tell it is, they I gave me this little, teeny piece of ice, and I would put it in my mouth, and they would say, OK, now, after you run that to your mouth a little bit, give it back to me what's left. You know, little, teeny piece of ice and I’m supposed to give back what’s left after I run it around my mouth. They were nuts. Well, you know as well as I do that ice doesn't remain ice unless it’s in the freezer, so here's this little cup of ice that I know is about half a cup of water in there. And I’m--
Now, the reason they wouldn’t let me have anything orally, or is they were afraid that it could possibly kill me. Well, I was already dying and I didn't care. All I knew is I wanted that water.
Well, my mother was in there, I believe there were a couple of nurses, and I was stationary. I couldn't move. And so, I said, “Will you please, I've got some chores to do.” And they, if you think I'm kind of blunt sometimes I am, and I asked them to leave, and they did. My mother left with a little bit of hesitation. I don't know whether it's mother's intuition or whatever it might be, but she was a little bit worried as to what was going on, what I was really after. And maybe she kind of had the idea that I was really after all water, but I was in a great deal of pain, so the process was very slow to reset, and I had the IV going this in this arm, so I began the process of turning so that I could reach that cup.
To give you an idea of how long it took, I just reached it, my mother decided that it had been plenty long enough. I might've been five minutes, ten minutes. But I just got a hold of that ice, and she stuck her head in the door. And immediately, you know, she hollered down the hall, “Nurse!” as loud as she knows how she could. The funny thing about that is the nurse station was right behind her. I had that ice and she ran, and she had that cup and we were fighting back and forth. And all I knew is that I was going to drink that water no matter what it took. Well, I didn't get the water. It's still all over everything. And from that point on, I was punished. I never got any more ice. When you got something, take advantage of it, don’t try to get something greater, sometimes you need to keep that in mind. I found out the hard way. But anyway, I think it was the fifth day my father came in again, and with this same elder gave me a blessing. A blessing that my digestive system would start and that things would be well. The doctors couldn’t give any reason as to exactly what caused the digestive system to stop. Well, that night, the night after my father came in that second and gave me a blessing with the power priesthood, my digestive system started again. I tell you, talk about excitement.
The doctor couldn’t give any reason why it stopped and he couldn’t give any reason why it started again. Well, I’m not exactly sure why it stopped, but I know why it started again, because it was through the power of the priesthood. And that's something that we all have the opportunity to have in our lives if we just take advantage of that. And I'm sure that most of the young men here hold the priesthood.
Ricks College gives us a setting where we can learn more about the church and about the gospel and about the things that it offers to us. There's no other church on this earth that has the gospel, as we know it, that has the Holy Ghost, that has the power of the priesthood. This church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is the only church, true church. Now, there are other churches that have good things that are taught, and I will never take that away, but they don't have the Holy Ghost, and they don't have the power of the priesthood. This is the Lord's church, this is the Lord's school, and we need to realize that and the good things that come to us because of that.
I think I probably spent a little bit longer than I anticipated on that particular thing. You know, one thing that I finally had to realize is that you have to accept yourself, and we all have problems. We all have things we’d like to change.
You’ve got to accept yourself first, the way you are and then start building on that. Start building on the strength that you have and working with the weaknesses. I think that’s on the things I really started looking towards and building on.
I remember I used to go to seminary in the seminary. Our high school, you wouldn’t believe, we had a set of stairs, it was, it must have been about 20 of them and each time that I would have to outside and across the parking lot to the seminary building, I had a couple of fellows that would have to come carry me down those steps. Now I don’t think those fellows minded too much because it helped build up some muscles, right?
So, as they were taking me down the steps this one particular day, there was a group of...Well, the grade school had come to high school for an assembly. All these little kids were coming out. At the time, I had a wheelchair that had arms. It had a desk that was made over that by the woodshop class, and I then had a blanket which I hung over the edge of the desk, and it went down to about the point where the seat of my wheelchair began. And I don’t know exactly why, you know. Maybe I thought if no one could see my legs weren’t there, that no one would know. They were missing, I don’t know. I think I was a little bit old to believe that, but I think I tried. But I remember this, this particular day going across and one of my friends was giving me a push. And this little boy, all the kids were kind of looking a bit, this one by came up to me, and he saw there was nothing below this blanket. And as curiosity rules children, he let it rule him this particular day, and he looked pulled the blanket up and looked underneath to see if there were really no legs there, or if they were, where they were. And he said, “Hey, you don't have your legs.”
I finally said, “Hey, you know, you’re right.”
And I looked back on that now, and it’s kind of funny, but at the time, it really had an impact on me. I finally accepted the fact that I didn't have legs anymore. And I was going to have to deal with that. And tried to do some things that would take my life in another direction other than the direction I thought I would go in the first place, and so I began that.
We all know that there's plenty of times working when we have a difficult time accepting the fact that we're a certain way. Alma and Ammon and Omni, Himni and one other, anyway, they all were leading people away from the church. And they knew what they were doing, but it took something really significant to help, significant to help them realize what they were doing to accept what they were doing and change that. And so, as the angel appeared to them, and they fell down in awe as to the situation. They finally
realized that they needed to make that change in their lives, as so they did so and became the greatest missionaries that we could probably ever imagine.
Ammon so much that he bought thousands of Lamanites into the church. We don’t have to have something significant like that to happen. I’ve never seen an angel, and I’ve never had a vision, but my testimony has sure grown. And I’m sure accept the fact that I don’t have any legs, and I need to build on that. There’s a lot of things that affect us. We need to make adjustments, and we need to accept the things and situations that we are in. And it’s important to have friends and family around us in order to do this. It’s important to have support.
There’s a little story that goes; it’s about some geese and a duck. And this fellow who was watching this situation. There was this little duck that was stuck in, I guess, a lake or a pond. The water had frozen fast enough that he was secured there in the ice.
And there were these geese flying up above him. And I’m not a great expert of wildlife, but from what I understand, geese and ducks aren’t the best of friends. And I don't exactly the situation or what goes on, but I know that that's what was told to me. And there was this fellow who what watching this situation, and all of a sudden, the geese started coming down towards this duck very quickly. And he thought for sure that these geese were coming down and attacking him, so to speak, you know, hitting him with their beaks. They were, I guess, trying to kill this duck that was stuck there in the water, taking advantage of him because he was stuck in the ice.
Well, as this hunter or farmer, took out his binoculars and looked a little bit closer, he saw what the duck was secured there in the ice, and the geese weren't in fact attacking the duck, but coming down and hitting in the ice with their beaks in an effort to free the duck from the ice. And they did just that.
See, he had made a judgment that they were trying to do something in an effort to hurt this person. And when he saw that they were in fact trying to help the duck, his view changed significantly, and he was able to accept it a lot easier. And we all have things we judge people, and we need to accept people as they are. We need to accept ourselves as we are and those things. There's three kinds of people. Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who have no idea what happened at all.
I think I’ve been in all three categories at one time or another. You know, I had my dreams when I was young, before I had my action as to what I wanted to do with my life. I don't know that I ever would attain to that. I enjoy basketball and I remember going down court one time during a fast break. Remember that I was 6 foot, 7 [inches]. WellI weighed about 175 pounds as I went into my sophomore year. So, 175 pounds, 6’ 7’’, I was very thin, had a tough time controlling my body. I remember going down court one time, as I got to the half court line, there was that black line there, and it tripped me. I went all over the floor and I’ll never live that down. So, I don't know for sure, but I think that was one off those times that I had no idea what was happening
A lot of us watch things happen, and too often we let that influence us. And all kinds of things can influence us for the worst. We need to be one of the people who make things happen. We don't watch things happen and then let that influence us. We take something and we make it happen.
I’ve got to tell you a little story here. And there's a basketball player, Davy Banks, and I don't know if any of you remember him, but he played for the Celtics. And he was an outstanding ball player, and he was also a showman. Well, this one time, I believe they were playing the Philadelphia 76ers, I’m not positive, but anyway he was playing a basketball game and they were before a home crowd, and he was an excellent ball handler, but at this one point, he came down, he was about half court and he was just trapped, he was triple-teamed, you know, he had three guys on him. He couldn’t do anything and he came to a stop. And he sat there, and he had a sharp mind, and he quickly thought of what he wanted to do. And he said, “Hold it!” And everyone looked to see if something was wrong, and he set the basketball down on the court in front of him. And all the people were watching to see if there was something wrong. The players on the other team were watching to see what was wrong. And you know, the three guys that were standing there, he says, “Step back!” and they moved back a little bit. “Step back further” and they moved back further, he got them to the point where he really felt comfortable and he picked up the ball, and before they had a chance to do anything, he shot and he made it.
I don’t know if any of you basketball players are like this past year, but this fellow knew how to play the game. He knew how to take something and really make something happen, if you can imagine. And this is a true story, too.
But we need to maybe not be quite that dramatic, but we need to make things happen, we need to take something that we know that we want to do, take something, make a goal and make something happen in relation to that.
Ricks was a great builder for me and it’s a great opportunity for each of you to be here and to realize the things that you can do. And to make something happen from those things.
I remember when I was at Ricks here, I used to have some artificial legs, and I am having some new ones made for me, and I hope to be using those again in about a month and a half or two. But I wore artificial legs when I was up here, and I had this little electric cart. It looked like a miniature golf cart or something, and it was a riot. And I learned some great things here at Ricks. I learned how to put flip donuts in my cart. I learned how to go through the front door of the Manwaring Center in my car without opening the door. Where’s Gary?
I learned some great things here. I remember another time when I was down here in the locker room and I was coming out; I used to work on the weights a lot. It never did me any good, but I thought it was doing me some good at the time. And I was coming out of the locker, and there was a little boy, probably about 5 years old. He was coming into the locker room, with his dad, they had just gotten done playing some racquetball or something, having some fun. And as I briefly mentioned before, kids are great, they are curious, and they like to ask questions. So, he, seeing that I had no legs, very bluntly said, “Where are your legs?”
And I said, having no shirt on, you know so I could see myself flex in the mirrors. I don't know if Bonnie was in there or not. But I said, I press my belly button and they come up inside of me.
He was just astounded, and he asked me— Well, first of all, I gotta tell you this. He tried pressing his belly button to see if it would work for him. And it didn’t, so he said, “Well, can you make them come back out again?”
And I said, “I haven't figured that one out yet.”
Kids are great. That's some of the great things I learned here at college. No, a great deal happened to me here. A great deal. You'd never seen me say some of the crazy things when I stay in front of a group like this. You know, six years ago, when I was attending Ricks College, or seven years ago before, I was very quiet, in fact, so quiet that I'd been on two dates before my accident. And until my second year in college, I hadn’t been on a date since my accident. And those two dates before were girl-ask-guy dances. So, you can see that I was very outgoing. And it didn't bother me at all to talk to people. One of the great things that happened to me while I was here is that I started to, in a sense, come out of my shell, and started to associate with people a lot more. And I had some fantastic experiences because of that. And not only that but met just the most fantastic person who has entered my life, and of course, that's my wife. And I'm awful proud to have her and to be able to spend my life with her for eternity and to have the two beautiful children that we have, and to know that if I live right, and Ricks [College} gave me a good help in moving that way, that I'll be able to live my life for them forever. And of course, I had started my battle up before I came to Ricks because of a good family, because of my parents and my brothers and sisters. and because of the friends that were around me and the support they gave me. Not only did I really kind of start coming out of my shell, but I started to grow spiritually, and I started to grow academically. Believe it or not, I guess I should pose this to my dad because I think he probably sometimes wondered if was gonna make through school, but I even got a four role one semester here. And so, I decided that academics was a good part of our life, too. And it's important for us to study. It's important for us to grow in our testimonies.
I want to give another saying here. This is a saying that Bob Richards has made or has stated. It's when people see themselves not as they are seen, now you've accepted yourselves, now it's time to do something else. It's when people see themselves not as they are, but as they can become, when they no longer see their weaknesses but their greatness. By emphasizing their strengths, they go on to do things they never dreamed of. We've all got a long ways to go. I think that I've been able to accomplish a little bit because I've had some dreams and I've gone after those dreams and tried to accomplish those. We need to check our lives and to accept it and then say, okay, this is what I want to accomplish and go with it for it, with everything that we can. I was able to win a Boston Marathon in a record time, something that's never been done by anyone before. Anyone. As President Hafen mentioned in his introduction. An hour and 55 minutes. I did 26.2 miles. And that will go down as the greatest athletic achievement that I've ever made. And there's a lot of other great things that I have not done but that I've experienced, through setting a goal and through having people support me in that goal.
One final story and I'll conclude. I want to tell you about a fellow that's been a great inspiration to me whom I've never met. His name is Jimmy Black and he's from Canada, Western Canada, I believe. And he decided at one point in his life that he was going to do something great. And that thing that he was going to do great was to be an international swimmer. And so, he started training and he started entering several meets. And he won some and he didn't win some.
One day he found out about a 10-mile marathon swim, he decided he was going to enter that. Not only was he going to enter it, he was going to win it. A 10-mile marathon swim, which is the same or similar to a 40-mile marathon run. He was going to win that, and he started training towards that effect. Four hours, 6 hours a day, and more. And I know as I was training for Boston last year, I was training 3 to 4 hours a day in preparation for the Boston Marathon. Well, the day of the race came, and the starter stood there. He raised his gun, he said, “Take your marks, get set,” and the gun went off.
And Jimmy, knowing that he was going to win that race, took off with everything that he had. 10 miles he was going to swim, and he was going to win that race. For the first mile he kept the lead and the second and the third and at mile 9 he still had that lead, and he had every confidence in the world that he was going to win that race. At mile 9 1/2 there was a fellow who was in second place who was coming up on him very quickly. Maybe I can't say very quickly because they'd already done 9 1/2 miles, but he was coming up on him anyway. And Jimmy knew he had to swim all the harder, and so he did. He swam as hard as he could. He put his whole heart into it because he was going to win that race. Well, the end of the race came, and this fellow just passed him. Jimmy finished second. He got out of the water, and he put his head in his hands, discouraged and depressed, feeling that he'd hit the bottom because he hadn't won all the time, knowing that he would win. Well, I dare say that if Jimmy had had two arms instead of 1, two arms like the fellow who beat him, there's no doubt in my mind that he would have won that race. Jimmy Black is a hero. Can you imagine the determination and the effort and the dedication that it took in order to prepare himself to come in even second place? With one arm. I think we all have a great deal to learn from this story. Accept yourselves as you are and then start building on that.
Improve yourselves. Set a goal. Put forth the effort and the determination that you need to put forth in order to achieve that goal. The church is true. Through your friends, your family, through your Father in Heaven, you can achieve anything. Well, just about, I doubt that I'll ever pole vault very high.
The church is true. Realize the great opportunities that you have, the many blessings you have, and build on those. Realize our Father in Heaven is always there to hear our prayers, and He's always there to hear the words of gratitude and thanks for the many things that He gives us and for the answers to the prayers that He gives us. The church is true. I leave you with my testimony that I know we can do just about anything we could ever dream of doing if we really put forth the effort and rely on those that are close to us and our Father in Heaven. And I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
President Bruce C. Hafen:
Brothers and sisters, we're going to do something a little out of the ordinary right now. It's a surprise to Kurt, but it's a surprise that we've planned and look forward to. His family knows about it. We'd like to let you in on it now, at the same time that Kurt learns of it. We have present today the president of the Alumni Association of Ricks College, Neal Call, and the director of the Alumni Association, Gary Brock. I wonder if we could just ask you, brethren, to stand. We hope that all of you someday will be alumni of Ricks College.
Today, we would like to award to Kurt Brinkman an award that is a special one from our school. It isn't given out very often. But we've chosen to do it today, a Distinguished Alumnus Award to Kurt Brinkman, who represents all of us.
Let me just read the first little bit of this certificate:
“Awarded to Kurt Brinkman in recognition of outstanding personal achievement for your determination to rise above limitations to reach and exceed your potential. For loyalty to the concept that you are a child of God and therefore capable of achieving greatness despite handicaps, discouragement, or fatigue.”
Curt, I think the main difference between you and the rest of us is that we can see your limitations. We all have ours, too, and it's my prayer that we can do with our bodies and our souls and minds and spirits what you've done with yours. Thanks for your inspiration to all of us and may God bless you in further service that you have to render to His kingdom. On behalf of Ricks College, I'm happy to present this distinguished alumnus award to you.