Connecting the Dots By Jo Vitek, SDPCA Past President, Chief of Police (retired), Watertown, SD The following is a speech given at the SD Police Chiefs’ Association & SD Sheriffs’ Association Annual Conference Banquet May 1, 2014 in Deadwood, SD. In 1953, American Playwright Henry Foote wrote The Trip to Bountiful. It’s a story about an elderly woman’s journey alone through Texas in search of her birthplace. As its name implies, Bountiful is beautiful. Imagine in your mind’s eye a cascading landscape of wildflowers and rolling countryside. For forty years, Carrie Watts yearned to return to her birthplace, to smell the fresh air, to see the Scissortail fly, and to feel the dirt of the land. If she could only return to Bountiful once more, her life would be made whole. She begins her journey equipped with nothing more than nostalgic memories of the past. Along her journey, she encounters numerous obstacles but her obvious and infectious spirit inspires, convicts, and transforms the lives of the strangers she meets. They too become devoted to her dream. Despite overwhelming odds, Mrs. Watts is successful in her endeavor. Her son, Ludie finds her sitting in a rickety rocking chair on the front porch of her old
28
dilapidated home. Now that her journey is completed, she knows it is time to leave. As she walks ever so slowly towards Ludie’s car, she pauses to scan the stunning landscape and take in a deep breath of fresh air. She stops to admire a Scissortail in flight. Then, Mrs. Watts sits down in the meadow. She reaches down with her hand to feel the dirt of the land. She scoops some of the earth into her hand and as the dirt pours through her fingers she says something very profound, “We’re all a part of this! You leave it, but you never lose what it gave to you.” 1 In The Trip to Bountiful, there’s this notion that we’re connected to our origins. When you stop and think about it, we have a direct and distinct relationship with our genesis—the place where we began. No matter how far we travel from it, no matter where our journey takes us, we’re still connected to it and it remains a part of us. We never lose what it gives to us. We’re a part of something that’s big, huge, and important! It’s extraordinary! In fact, I’m going to suggest to you that as we journey in life if we don’t know and understand where we came from, the likelihood of successfully fulfilling our potential or reaching our destiny is zero to none!
SOUTH DAKOTA MUNICIPALITIES
