Just the other day, my programming board, SPARC, was hosting a musician. This was our second artist to come and perform for our SPARC Presents series this semester. In the past, we have always chosen to schedule these events for Friday nights, but we wanted to switch it up and see how a Wednesday night would work at 9pm.

What we didn’t expect was for the artist to have their plane delayed for hours, not arriving until 10:45pm that night. It was a stressful evening for us, trying to decide what was best for our students, our artist, and our time. We didn’t want to disappoint, as we knew many students were looking forward to his performance (and the sugar cookies).

It was after this event that I realized how grateful I am for having such caring and wonderful leaders to work with day in and day out. We could have let it get the best of us and shown our disappointment to the students; however, we rallied on and we got creative.

We played bingo and told jokes waiting on his arrival. It didn’t help that it was super foggy out. When the artist did arrive, he mentioned how he would have loved to have commented on how beautiful the Michigan landscape was, but he couldn’t see it.

The thing is, these things happen. Flights get delayed, Mother Nature takes over, but it always turns out fine. Why? Because team work makes the dream work and that is one slogan that my team and I use every day.

We all have different skill levels and we use that to our advantage, in our programming board. There’s been ups and downs, but throughout it all we have kept true to our mission statement by creating memories with everything we do.

I’ve had some of the best memories with this crew. I won’t forget the inflatable laser tag, Trapped Toledo, Coup game breaks, silly string, the smiles, the laughs, NACA, SHUper Bowl, the 2am nights, the jokes, and most of all the people.

You all have had such an impact on our campus and our students. I’m so blessed to have been able to work with all four of you guys for the past year. SPARC’s Fly because of each and every one of you.

As this semester comes to a close, so does this E-Board. I’ll miss our Marketing Guru, our outgoing, stand-up comedian Programmer, our Momma Budgeter, and our Problem Solver President.

I love my Programming Board and I can’t wait to see where life takes each of these talented individuals. SPARC’s fly for life.