My Fellow Scholars,
The appeal of the Ron Brown Scholarship Program has never been called into question. After all, no one could argue with some of the most gifted and talented high school graduates being rewarded for their hard work, with money for their education and trips to Washington and Aspen. The real quandary came when the Ron Brown Scholars started to graduate from college. Once all these Scholars went out into the real world, what would continue to draw them together?
We all know what the result of that question was. The Ron Brown Scholar Alumni Association is now entering its fifth year. In that time, the RBSAA has gone through several boards, a few sets of by-laws, and countless telephone conference calls-all alumni driven, in spite of our busy graduate school and work schedules.
I am currently first vice president of the RBSAA, but the people that I really need to commend and give credit to were those RBS that put their souls and time into building up the RBSAA at the beginning. It could not have been easy, building up an organization from the ground with no real budget, no structure, nothing but a vision. But they managed to do it, putting hours of time into having meetings, and writing and rewriting guidelines, and getting input from alumni that, by now, are spread all over the world. At the risk of sounding cliché, I feel the need to repeat that Margaret Mead quote: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." These founders (they know who they are) really took that notion to heart.
Now the RBSAA has 5 classes of Scholars (I like to call them "Scholars-for-life", rather than former-Scholars) in it, and it only continues to grow. We have recently revised our Board to include directorships for such areas as mentorship and service programs and we have just completed our first successful book drive. Mainly, we look forward to the future, in anticipation what it has in store for the RBSAA. The journey has not always been an easy one, but its always been a pleasure.
-Shirley Delaleu, RBS 1998
