Good morning Wabash [Applause] speaking today at Pioneer Chapel will be Leslie Wyrick with her talk titled one second of Hope Leslie weirk has been speaking on the topic of Suicide Prevention to teens young adults parents and the military for the past six years she often says she didn’t choose this
Work but this work chose her with a knock on her door at 2 30 in the morning on September 10th of 2016. she lost her 20 year old son Austin to suicide by sheer coincidence this day also happens to be World Suicide Prevention and awareness day Leslie began sharing her story within
Her local community in 2017 and then in 2018 her story took a turn and gained national attention as a human interest Sports story which launched her public speaking career in 2020 she resigned from her full-time job as a financial recruiter to begin speaking all over the nation
She focuses on youth mental health with an emphasis on young men student athletes and the military in January of 2021 she partnered with Oaklawn Community Mental Health Center in northern Indiana as the first Suicide Prevention specialist she helped raise over a hundred thousand dollars to put the sources of strength suicide prevention
Program in several high schools in her community over the past two years she has been speaking on Army bases all over the country and this September we’ll be presenting her talk to the Pentagon and West Point Military Academy Leslie is certified in youth Mental Health First Aid QPR assist and safe
Talk she is also an inspiring Comfort certified trainer she has been a member of the Elkhart County Suicide Prevention Coalition where she has lived for the past 20 years her first keynote talk broke a five-year fundraising record for the largest non-profit in the state of Indiana and raised over 249 thousand
Dollars to put licensed clinical therapists in local schools last October Leslie was the keynote speaker for the national loss local Outreach of suicide survivors conference she grew up in Fort Wayne Indiana and studied journalism at Indiana University her career spans over 30 years in sales and marketing including the last 10 as
An executive recruiter however she believes her greatest accomplishment is her work in raising awareness and saving young lives through her public speaking program called Leslie’s hope in 2016 her family established the Austin Wyrick Memorial Scholarship fund and is given away over twenty four thousand dollars in college scholarships
She hosts an annual 5k Every September to raise money for the fund which has now been fully invested in the Community Foundation of Elkhart County where all donations are matched at 25 you can reach out to Leslie through her website at lesleyshope.org let’s give a warm welcome to Leslie [Applause] good morning
Making sure you can hear me here I speak for a living so I can project my voice pretty well I want to thank Wabash College and especially the Sphinx club for inviting me to speak at Chapel talk this morning I love starting all my talks with this Native American proverb
And it says Tell me the facts and I’ll learn tell me the truth and I’ll believe but tell me a story and it’ll stay in my heart forever because if there’s one thing that I’ve learned over the last six and a half years from speaking all over the United States now
Is its stories or what people remember in a way that they don’t statistics now I know you Wabash men love your data I’m going to give you a little bit of that in this talk this morning but I’ve mostly come here to share our story because our story has Deep Roots
On this beloved Campus of Wabash College before I get started with our story this morning I want you to just sit there and think about something I want to ask you to think back on a moment in your life when you got the news about something
And it just stopped you in your tracks to this day you can remember where you were when you heard that news who you were with maybe you were eating in a restaurant maybe you were hanging out with a brother or a buddy maybe you were sitting in class
But it just takes you back some of you I imagine in here might be remembering the pandemic where were you when you heard our world was shutting down in March of 2020. I think a lot of us can remember that and what happens when you get news like
That you tend to gauge Time by it the rest of your life was that before covet shut the world down or is that after covet shut the world down it’s like everything is marked by that event in your life and you get this new sense of time
Because it stays etched in your brain in a way and in your heart that you’ll never forget but it changes you it changes you forever that moment in my life came on September the 10th of 2016. which just so happens to be World Suicide Prevention and awareness day in fact the last time
I was on the campus of Wabash College was just six short days after that which was Friday September the 16th of 2016. it’s definitely one of those days that’s etched in my mind and in my heart because it was one of the hardest days of my life and also of my husbands
But you know as hard as that day was I somehow knew in my heart when we drove off this campus I’d be back here one day so here I am seven years later and you know what they say that which does not kill us makes us stronger and Wabash always fights [Applause]
But if you think Wabash always fights you need to see how Wabash Moms fight who’ve lost their sons to suicide and I’m not the only one here this morning so I have a new title now that my son gave me a brand new title he gave me
Seven years ago which is called Survivor of suicide loss but before I finish this talk you’re going to understand why that title doesn’t work well for me anymore next week will mark seven years since we packed up our son’s books his clothes in all of his belongings and drove his
Car off this campus you see we went home to celebrate his life because that’s the thing about suicide people only want to talk about how somebody died we chose to flip that script and we wanted to talk about how Austin lived and who he was and so much of who he was
The last two years of his life happened on this campus that he loved more than anything so let me tell you just a little bit about our son Austin was probably a lot like some of you in here it all started off right here in this Chapel freshman orientation
The ringing in ceremony in the fall of 2014. I remember he was sitting right up there his dad and I were down here we kept looking back at him and he was kind of hanging over the balcony with some of his teammates and his his roommates and it was such a hope
Filled day he had worked so hard to get here his dad and I were really really proud of him he was so excited to be at Wabash and especially for the football season you see Austin was probably like a lot of you a high achiever overachiever he left nothing on the table
He was the president of his freshman sophomore Junior and senior class at Goshen High School he ran track and played football all four years he was there and he was voted The Scholar athlete in one or both of those Sports every year of high school Austin actually was the stay in bounds
Ambassador which he would go into the elementary schools and the middle schools and put on his letter jacket and go in there and talk to the young kids about making good choices in life he was a role model he even was awarded the Hugh O’Brien leadership award which some of you in
Here are probably Hobie winners and you know that’s only given to one Rising Junior you have to be nominated by your principal he went on to a leadership conference that he attended at Butler University and he’d go on to graduate above a perfect 4.0 taking weighted honors his senior year of high school
And he received twenty six thousand dollars in renewable academic scholarships which allowed him to come here to Wabash and play football he was driven focused sound like any of you out there today or up there in the balcony he knew what he wanted to do and he loved leadership it’s one of the
Reasons he chose Wabash he stepped up every chance he had to be a leader with that same drive and determination he landed here on the campus of Wabash he became the president of the independent men’s association now Austin had lots of friends and fraternities but he was kind of an independent thinker an
Independent kind of guy so he represented that part of your student body really well he was also a member of the war council Wabash acts responsibly in fact Austin was scheduled to lead the meeting for the war council on the morning of Monday September the 12th of 2016.
The topic that morning was mental health concerns on campus but unfortunately our son Austin never showed up for that meeting he never showed up because in the early morning hours of Saturday September the 10th everything in his life and in ours was about to take a turn
It all started about 2 30 in the morning with someone ringing our doorbell like crazy now I can tell you that’s a sound that none of your parents ever want to hear but especially at 2 30 in the morning Austin’s dad can sleep through almost anything but not me I’m a very light
Sleeper so as soon as I heard the pounding on our front door and the ringing of my doorbell like my house was on fire I jumped out of bed as quick as I could and I I said to my husband somebody’s at our front door I was bolting down the front stairs
Before my husband could even get out of bed and when I looked through our front window I could see a police car parked in front of our house by that time my husband was standing behind me and we opened the front door to two police officers on our front porch
The first officer said do you have a son named Austin Wyrick who attends Wabash College we said yes yes we do then came the words that absolutely no parent ever wants to hear you with me you need to call this number because your son has been in an accident
I grabbed that card out of his hand as fast as I could and I ran back in to find my cell phone my husband and I were standing in our kitchen when we called the dean here at Wabash Dean Raiders and he told us he was so sorry to tell
Us there had been an accident that evening in Austin’s townhouse he was with his girlfriend there had been an argument and he had shot himself he told us they were transporting him by ambulance to Saint Vincent’s in Indianapolis and we needed to get there as quickly as we could
Now I have seen some really bad thunderstorms in my lifetime but I have never ever seen rain or lightning or thunder like we had to drive through that night we had a three-hour Drive ahead of us from where we live and we were only about a half hour down
The road when my cell phone rang it was the emergency room doctor and he wanted to know if we were on our way I told him that we were and he asked if we could pull over to the side of the road so he could talk to us
He said he was sorry to tell us the ambulance had just arrived with Austin but there was no pulse I said what do you mean it’s like my head and my heart couldn’t even comprehend the words he was saying what did he mean there was no pulse said Mr Mrs Wyrick
I’m sorry to tell you your son did not survive the accident but we still need you to come please please be careful driving through the storm in that moment Austin’s dad who is about the most soft-spoken man I’ve ever known in my life just cried out to God why Austin why oh
Why oh why we sat there for about 10 minutes in the dark on this side of that road finally we drove on for the next two and a half hours in silence in shock except for the rain which never let up we pulled into the parking lot at St
Vincent so my husband looked over at me and he said I just feel like God is even crying with us tonight and I believe that he was in so many ways that memory of that night it’s like a blur and in other ways I can remember every single detail
Like it happened just yesterday even in three more days it’s going to be actually seven years ago that we sat on the side of that dark Road so World Suicide Prevention awareness nay is not just a hashtag on my LinkedIn profile page it’s my life’s work it’s
What gets me up in the morning every single day and keeps me going because here’s what I want I never ever want any of your parents to ever hear their doorbell ring at 2 30 in the morning and guess what it’s also how I measure time was that before Austin died
Or after Austin died but I’m not here today just to tell you the story of losing our son I’m here to tell you that that was not the end of our story not even close remember I’m a Wabash mom so I always fight as some of you might know
That would not be the last suicide this campus would ever face on the two-year anniversary of Austin’s death September 10th of 2018. we would receive a text message that evening from one of his roommates and this is what it said Mr Mrs Wyrick I don’t know if you heard
But Evan Hansen the co-captain of the Wabash football team took his life today I’m so sorry to have to tell you this especially today but I just didn’t want you and your husband to hear about it on the news now our grief which we were still learning how to
Navigate through was compounded as we shared it with the Hanson family of Carmel Indiana Evan Hansen was only 21 years old and about to graduate with a double major in Spanish and biology he had just been recognized that Saturday as the co-captain of the team on senior Saturday he stood on the field
Proudly with his mom and dad on both sides they went out to eat after the game Evan got up on Sunday morning he went to practice saw all his teammates had a meeting with his coaches and on Monday morning Evan walked into the woods and in a Split Second gave up hope
So now his parents would also be handed a new way to measure time was that before Evan died or after Evan died two weeks after Evan’s death we were contacted by a reporter from the Indianapolis Star she told us that she would be interviewing Chuck and Mary Hansen to
Talk about Evan’s death and she wanted to know if we would share our part of the story because she thought if both families could share things that maybe we could help someone else not have to go through what we have we agreed my husband and I did the
Interview with the reporter and the following week on a Wednesday the article came out in the Indianapolis Star by Sunday your beloved Wabash College made national news as a human interest Sports story feel free to Google two Wabash football players die by Suicide it’s not what you want to be known for
That’s why I’ve come I want to turn this around I want you guys to be known as trendsetters in men’s Mental Health [Applause] [Applause] two weeks later I’d be contacted by the largest non-profit in the state of Indiana they had read the article they wanted to know if I would come and
Be their keynote speaker and I had not done any speaking at that point and I kind of laughed and I said I’m not I’m not a speaker I’m not a keynote speaker I’m a I’m a mom who’s lost my son to suicide they said we know
We read your story and we want to know if you’d be able to come and share it at our fundraiser they said we’ll give you a week to think about it we’ll call you back I went home and I discussed it with my husband and he said you know what Leslie
He said ever since Austin died you’ve been talking about wanting to get out more and share our story to help other young people and especially young men here’s a chance I think you should do it in January of 2019 I took the stage for 24 minutes as the keynote speaker for
Jazzing up January for Crosswinds counseling within an hour of finishing my talk they broke a five-year fundraising record and we raised 249 thousand dollars to put licensed clinical therapists in 25 Community Schools Something Told Me something told me that if our story could move that many people
To donate that much money to mental health counseling that I needed to keep on telling it and telling it and telling it so here I am seven years later back with you at Chapel talk it’s the reason I’ve come back because once again I didn’t come
Here just to share the sad part of our story with you this morning I came here to tell you the rest of our story I have a good friend I met her shortly after Austin died she’s a speaker and an author she had the back-to-back tragedy of
Losing her 39 year old husband to a rare form of cancer and then two years later her six-year-old son would die after a medical error in a hospital where he was given the wrong medication she wrote a book about it called the list she found me on LinkedIn and she called
Me up and she said you know what Leslie I want to tell you something I’m sending you my book to read but here’s the deal when you go through tragedy like we have you get two choices in life two you can either stay stuck in your story
Or you can stand on your story I knew within the first 24 hours of Austin’s death that we were not going to be silent we knew if there was any part of our story that we could share and help other families help other young people help young men
Then we were going to step out on a leap of faith and tell our story we just actually had no idea back then what a big platform we would be given right after Austin’s death I’m a woman of faith and I realize that we represent a lot of beliefs in here
But stick with me here right after Austin’s death I was pretty angry at God I’ll be honest with you I was wrestling with a lot of things with my faith I was up one night in the middle of the night just trying to talk to him and remember Austin and
I couldn’t sleep and so I opened up my Bible and I am not a a Biblical scholar but I literally opened up my Bible just on the ground to Genesis 50 20 which says you intended to harm me but God used this for good to accomplish what is
Now being done the saving of many lives over the past seven years I’ve received hundreds of emails DMS text messages phone calls from families from moms from teens from dads who have thanked me who have told me either they or someone they loved or suicidal and then they came to hear our story
They had either tried to harm themselves they were thinking about harming themselves but once they heard our story which I go to in much greater depth in a longer Keynote something made them change their mind something made them get brave enough to ask for help and say I can’t do this by
Myself I need to talk to somebody so I know that our story has power and I know this is what I’m meant to do with my life so you might just say this Chapel talk has been seven years in the making because I’ve come back to Wabash to
Share the rest of our story with you because my new title is not Survivor of suicide loss anymore my new title is Sir thriver of suicide loss losing Austin has set me on a path to try and understand young men’s Mental Health and even though I’ve shared our story
All over the world now I’m still amazed that it resonates with people everywhere because here’s the thing stress anxiety depression mental health challenges speak a universal language no matter where you live so last summer a journalist from the BBC contacted me he said hey Leslie I saw your seven minute YouTube video
And we’re planning this thing over here in England do I have any British Brothers in here today anybody from England yes well we call it the Baton of Hope but of course my British friends call it the betan of Hope and um he said I want to know if you would
Allow us to use your story for our website so so honored if you if you look up the Baton of Hope UK and scroll down through stories you’ll see Austin’s story if you would have told me that I’ll have that I would have over 44 000 followers
On LinkedIn by writing a daily mental health post I would never believe you once again depression anxiety and stories touch lives because that’s all I’m doing I’m just sharing stories but here’s what my son Austin would have gotten such a kick out of he would have been like no way Mom if
You would have told me that I am doing two presentations to the United States Pentagon next week I would have never believed you the following day I will be speaking to McAfee software employees in the U.S the UK India Japan and Australia and then the last week of September I’m going to
Fly up to West Point and hang out with those cadets for the week I’ve got a thing or two to talk about high Achievers High Achievers in here let me just tell you something High Achievers high stress high risk you with me okay so now I’m about to get up in your
Business this morning what does it look like for you here in the this morning all of you sitting here none of you knew Austin and Evan I don’t believe and maybe some of you are hearing their stories for the first time this morning but here’s the truth
They were not the last suicides here you have had suicides from your student body since then that’s why I’m here no more suicides on the campus of Wabash or with Wabash boys you hear me that’s why I’ve come back seven years later because I don’t want our story to ever become your story
Everyone walking in here this morning whether you were hanging out there eating Donuts wherever you came from every one of you is dealing with something this morning we all are maybe it’s a relationship issue like it was with my son we’re going to talk about that in a minute
Maybe one of your classes is just a lot harder than you thought it was going to be and you need it to graduate you’re not doing well maybe something’s going on with one of your roommates or fraternity brother you’re dealing with something but you you don’t want anybody to know
About it right Wabash always fights I got this grit it out man up the man up mentality is killing our young men killing them I’m about to give you some data you can’t stuff it I call that your invisible backpack but the problem is it’s not that invisible
That backpack Can Only Hold so much before it starts spilling out sideways you know what that looks like drinking a little too much on the weekend missing classes just a lot of things perfectionism okay Here Comes Your data it’s pretty shocking and it’s recent according to the CDC men account for 79 percent
Of all suicides in our country you’re four times more likely to end your life than young women are and globally you’re twice as likely to die by your own hand now I’m going to throw something else in there on top of you this morning let’s talk about your
Generation all right I speak to Jen Sears all day every day you were born all of you in here I’m assuming were born between 1997 and 2012. so let’s look at what the CDC says about that specifically your age 63 percent of young adults between 18 to 25 that’s all
You guys in here that’s all you Wabash Brothers you’re currently experiencing significant symptoms of depression we’re going to talk about what it looks like in men because remember you got that invisible backpack you got it stuffed nobody knows but here’s one that recently came out in May through our surgeon general’s office
We’re going to talk about loneliness research also tells us that 65 percent of your age group report feeling lonely sometimes or all the time and 19 of you report having no close friends so I know you’re like hey Leslie I got my Wabash Brothers I’m not lonely
You can be in a crowded Chapel and feel lonely loneliness is not about being surrounded by people loneliness is about feeling that no one cares you’re not seen and you’re not connected with people stick with me we’re going to talk more about that so that’s the big deal about loneliness right
Let’s see what the Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy has to say he defines loneliness as a common feeling so the first thing I want to tell you is if you’re in here and you’re feeling lonely this morning it’s not unusual okay It’s Not Unusual it’s common he says
It’s like hunger or thirst it’s a feeling that our body sends us when we’re missing something we need something yeah we do we need each other we need connection but here’s what he says he goes on to tell us physically how hard it is on our body do you know that
Loneliness is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day for your body and it has terrible impact on your mental health so there you have it straight from the surgeon general’s mouth not mine let me recap for you gen Z self reports you self-report as the loneliest generation ever think about that for a
Minute I want you to think about that you are the most digitally connected yet you’re the loneliest generation ever these things here we’re going to talk about those in a minute they’re not connection they’re disconnection seven out of ten of you say you’d rather communicate digitally than in person
And 62 percent of you say you’d rather leave home without your wallet than your phone let me tell you another little story about leaving home without my phone this spring I had to go get my car serviced and my dealership is about 15 minutes from my house I was running a
Little early that morning so I was almost there and I looked down I realized I didn’t have my phone with me and I thought I’m going to turn around and go get it I thought no I’m not I’m going to practice what I preach I do not need my phone this morning
So I pull into the dealership and the first thing I notice is it’s kind of chaos there’s construction there’s cones up there’s barricades back into the service department and everybody in there is complaining and griping and moaning and and I finally get back into the service department and I can see I’m
Looking at the service desk and the guys buying the service desk especially the service manager I know him because I take my car in there a lot it’s a bad morning and it’s only eight o’clock temperatures are short so I go back into the lounge to wait on
My car in about 20 minutes later he comes back to get me and I put my hand on his or touch his arm and I said hey kneel buddy if the worst problem these people have today is a little bit of construction give my cell number tell him to call me
I’ll be really happy to tell him what a bad day really looks like he kind of looks at me and I said you see Neil I said uh we lost our son seven years ago to Suicide so I don’t really sweat the small stuff construction delays small stuff now was a tall guy
He kind of stopped he looked at me me too Leslie I’m in your Club I lost my dad 10 years ago to suicide Neil and I stood there for about another five minutes and we talked he told me his dad had been in Vietnam he had been through a lot of PTSD he
Never asked for help and he ended up taking his life it was just 10 years ago last week I went to see my buddy Neil on the 10-year anniversary of his dad’s death we talked for a few minutes and then I was getting ready to get my car and Neil
Said can I give you a hug Leslie I said you sure can later on that evening I looked at my phone and I had a message in there and it was from Neil’s mom she said I have no idea what you said today to my son but he never talks about his dad
He never opens up to anybody so I want to thank you for whatever it was that you said that connected with him you know why I connected with him because I forgot this stupid thing at home if I would have had it with my head down
Do you know what I saw when I came on the campus in Wabash today let me show you what I saw let me ask you a question how many kneels on Wabash campus are you walking by because you’re looking at a tick tock video on your phone
You cannot see people’s pain when your heads are down we have to look up we are in a mental health crisis you just heard the data 79 percent you’re on a small all-male campus and you have had multiple suicides here you guys gotta look up and get your heads out of your phones
I’m sorry I’m pretty passionate about that topic but we’re not finished with it because those conversations can only happen when we’re looking up we don’t notice I wouldn’t have noticed everything going on that morning how many of you know that the mental health concerns committee here on campus was formed after Austin’s suicide
Now I know that coven messed some things up here on campus and I understand that but Austin would have loved that he would have loved that what a legacy to try to help his Wabash Brothers with their Mental Health especially his little Wabash Brothers
You know you have a lot of clubs here I went on the website so I was getting ready for the talk and I looked it up I don’t know if they’re all active but you actually have 54 clubs listed on the website and I don’t really care what the clubs
Do or what they’re about that doesn’t matter to me what I care about is showing up for each other putting the phone down having conversations it’s the connection in those clubs that I care about the relationships in those clubs are what are going to help your mental health
A Tick-Tock video is not going to do anything for anyone’s mental health yours or anyone else’s what matters is the connection that you form with your Wabash Brothers while you’re here and that’s how we’re going to turn this Mental Health crisis around in our world and on this campus one conversation at a
Time why is it so important now we’re going to talk about hope clinically what that means connection creates hope and hope saves lives this is what I talked to when I go on big army bases with soldiers I want to tell you what the definition of Hope is
It’s expectancy it’s expecting to go to the game with your buddies this weekend it’s expecting to go out to for burgers tonight you’re looking forward to something happening now here’s the deal about hope when you have that expectancy it releases these good endorphins in your brain because you’re looking
Forward to seeing somebody you’re looking forward to doing something and when those endorphins get released those good chemicals in our brain it calms our stress level down which gives us the ability to think more clearly and make better choices than the one that Austin or Evan made
I often say and I teach a lot about the brain I speak in high schools that I’m not sure about Evan but Austin had an amygdala hijack what does that mean the back of his brain his fight or flight those big emotions they got stuck he couldn’t reason his way into the next
Moment and see that things were going to get better things were going to change he couldn’t think clearly he lost hope so that’s why we need to keep hope in our lives hope helps us think clearly hope comes from connection and hope saves lives there is clinical research you can you
Can look it up that backs up what I’m saying and I’ve been saying this since the day Austin died so if you only remember one thing I say here today stay with me it might be a little shocking what I’m about to say but here it is no one ever dies of suicide
They don’t their backstories are different what leads up to that moment is different Austin and Evan’s stories were very very different the manner of death is suicide the cause of death loss of Hope in a single moment when they couldn’t see to the next moment when things were going to get better
Did you know that we can live 40 days without food and water we can live three days without food we can live three days without water and we can live eight minutes without air but only one Split Second without hope so I don’t know all your stories all of
You that have come in here this morning and I’m so glad to see all your beautiful faces I love this campus but here’s what I want to do I want to ask you something what’s in your invisible backpack this morning what are you carrying around that you
Don’t want anybody to know about you got it stuffed back there you got it right when you get brave enough to trust one of your Wabash Brothers and get something out of that backpack that’s the start that’s connection and that’s the start of Hope expecting things to get better
So I want to share one last story with you before I close this morning this past March I was invited to be the speaker at the Wabash Indianapolis men’s club these are your alumni they are successful men they have crushed it in life the man of the man in
The morning was an orthopedic surgeon they’re attorneys doctors guess what that doesn’t matter every one of those men are still carrying around invisible backpacks they’re just older and they’ve been carrying that weight a lot longer in life so I explained the concept to them of the invisible backpack as it relates to
Men’s Mental Health we talked about how important it is for them especially in their careers to find people to find a tribe of people that they can trust with their mental health that they can take something out of that backpack and I gave them a Throwdown
Challenge I asked them to take one thing out of their invisible backpack that morning they’re about 350 of them there I said do not leave this breakfast until you get with a Wabash alum a Wabash brother and I want you to lighten your load I want you to say hey
Man I’ve never told anybody this but I need to tell you something okay so after I finished speaking there’s usually people that come up and talk to me and there were several that morning and as the crowd was clearing out I noticed these two men were standing off
In the corner they kind of waited till everybody left and then they made their way up to me they really took me up on the challenge now they’d known each other for about 20 years went to Wabash here together first one turned to his Wabash brother and said uh
I never talk about this but when I was 10 years old my dad took his life it gets better his buddy his friend from Wabash of many years said wow man I am so sorry because I know how that feels because I never told anybody this but
When I was seven years old my dad took his life can you even imagine can you even imagine how their backpacks got lightened that morning and that friendship took a no a whole nother level of depth I told him if there was an award that morning for lightning the backpack I
Would have given it to those two because they connected through their loss and remember connection creates hope and hope changes lives so here it goes I got a couple Throwdown challenges for you Wabash men this morning what are you carrying around in your invisible backpack every one of you sitting in here you’re
All dealing with something you think you’re handling it but you got it stuffed back there you talk about the strength of your Brotherhood all the time here so why not trust that Brotherhood why not find somebody so here’s my challenge it’s Thursday before the weekend before tomorrow be
Great if you did it today I want you to find a Wabash brother find somebody and if you think of somebody that doesn’t have anybody you go to them and you go hey man I gotta share something with you and then you say what’s in your backpack
Let’s talk because you don’t need to be a licensed clinical therapist to Save a Life you need to just pull up a chair put your phone down look into somebody’s eyes and give them your time give them your time you got to turn off your phone guys Second Challenge
And I want you guys not everybody’s in here this morning I realize this but I’m giving you a Wabash Challenge and I know how Wabash men love challenges I want you to really spend the month of September World Suicide Prevention and awareness month Sunday is World Suicide Prevention Awareness Day
Which will Mark the seven year anniversary of the last time I’ve heard the sound of my son’s voice and where’s Mary Hansen Mary is up there Evan’s mom so everybody give her a hug this morning she drove from Indianapolis okay she will mark five years without Evan on
Sunday and I want you to show up on Saturday morning we have a 5k here in memory of our boys we are raising money for Austin scholarship we’ve given six college scholarships away we have the only college scholarship in our County that’s earmarked for someone going in the mental health field
Okay so I’m asking to do two things I’m asking you to lighten your backpack find a brother talk don’t stuff it because you don’t want it to come out sideways and listen you might think you’re handling it but men’s depression looks different it looks like anger
It looks like irritation you got a short fuse it looks like drinking too much on the weekend it looks different so you’re not really you’re not really hiding it and you’re here for such a short time in this amazing place you want to have those deep relationships remember connection
Leads to Hope and hope saves lives so those are my two challenge challenges for you Wabash and I know Wabash always fights and brothers don’t let Brothers suffer in silence connect with a brother before the weekend because it only takes one second of hope to have no more suicides on
Wabash College campus thank you for letting me share a story with you this morning [Applause] [Applause]
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