 But just keep it in the back of your mind as we go through this new year and try to make that a point to live by. One man that certainly knows the meaning of teamwork, no doubt about it. The true meaning of teamwork is our speaker this morning. Would you guys like for me to move this? As I said, we're honored to have with us, as most of you know, Sergeant Dakota Meyer, he is a Green County native. He attended Green County High School, started here, I think, as a sophomore and went through the rest of his year here, played football and ran some track as well. And I have a little bit more I want to say about him in a minute. But I want to ask Mr. Will Hodges to come up and say a brief word and then Mr. Griffiths about Mr. Meyer here. Some of you had him in class and some of you may not even know of Mr. Meyer, but you're gonna get to know him this morning. So, Will, if you'd come show a few words with us. I guess the first thing that comes to mind when Dakota came here was, I filled out the transfer papers for you. Now that seems like a good thing, right? Come on, y'all can laugh a little this morning. But I don't know, some of you had Dakota in class. I had Dakota in class and Dakota, at the time, he's like a lot of kids were, he was searching. I could probably say that and Dakota would probably agree with me this morning. He was searching for something and he was looking for somewhere to do well. And I think about some of the good things, when I had him in class, he invited me and a buddy of mine out, went out to his farm rabbit hunting. We get out there and I don't think that farm's ever seen a rabbit. He said, yeah, come on out, he said there's all kinds of rabbits out here. They must have been hiding under a rock because we didn't kill any. Then another time, I remember after track practice, I think me and James and Trent and being some of us had class, we had a paper do. Remember that? So after track practice, I didn't have the paper typed. It was about 20 pages. He sat out in there with me. He typed about 10 pages, I typed about 10 pages. I don't know what he typed because I never read it. But I did get an A in the class, so I don't know if they read it or tell you the truth, the professor probably didn't read it himself, right, James? We got an A. You know, he got into pole vaulting. I'm telling you, he was pole vaulting on a light pole. He weighed about two plus. And he went and he drove over over to Grayson County. He had to drive over there to get the pole. You know, he was gun-co. He got into that, he really excelled at that. That's something he was good at. And, you know, and along the way, we probably had our knocks too. I think it was his junior year. We're getting ready to go to the regional meet. He says, I can't go, Coach. He says, I can't go. I said, Dakota, wow, nice. My dad said, I got to come home and rake hay. I was pretty mad when I went to Dakota. You know, he'd come back out his senior year, you know, come back out. You know, I want him back on the team. And he'd come back out. He had a great senior year. He made it to the state meet. He went to the region that year and he made it to the state meet. And I guess, you know, then we get up to state meet he performs and some of the other kids are going to perform the next day. Well, it's kind of odd because I don't remember as his grandfather or who grandfather was sick and he was already up around Louisville, Lexington. So we allowed him to drive over. But the thing was he had to leave his keys in my room once he got there. Well, he did that most of the time. We had a team meeting before that last day of competition. Take, take, you know, he'd already competed the previous day and did well at state. But during the team meeting, he slips out and he grabs his keys and he told me the other day he said, man, I was just a slick. He said, I thought it was. So he gets in his vehicle and drives a block or two over to some convenience store. Him and him and took another one with him, by the way. And I think he's getting ready to check out. He turns around and there I stand, looking right at him. And I said, boy, the Marines, it's going to be a rude waitin' for you, boy. So he told me. And he reminded me of that the other days. But I think he was always looking for an area where he can excel. And I just hope we can do that, put kids in places that they can excel and where they can succeed. And Dakota's certainly done that. Coach Griffiths. I forgot about that. Coach Hodges will be hard to follow. In my role as assistant principal, of course, when he comes in to enroll, he called Miss Thompson back there. Dakota came in to enroll. I met him up there in the office. And we had a few words and more few words and everything like that. Assistant principal, of course, is responsible for discipline. But I'm going to share something that was pretty unique. Dakota, when they're working on a schedule, Miss Thompson actually put him back there with Miss Tana. Because Miss Tana was going to have an overload group. And Mr. Coyle was back there. But the thing that I remember most about Dakota, Ben Tucker's parents had brought Ben in, never been into school before. And they put a sock on him. That man went anywhere with Dakota. And wouldn't go with anybody else. But those are the type of things that I think sometimes as teachers, administrators, coaches, we forget about are those things. It's easy to point out the bad things. You know, Dakota spent a lot of time with me, like, say, Ben assistant principal, this one. He spent a lot of time with me. So we got to know each other real, real well. But that was one of the things that told Dakota. He said, you know, where do you think I could be successful? I thought he'd make an excellent teacher and coach, just simply because he knew how to build relationships fast with, you know, I guess with the right people, because he spent a lot of time in my office. But, you know, it's like I say, with Ben Tucker, I know his parents, that was one thing that, you know, Dakota, Ben had never been with anybody else, but his parents. So pretty unique that he would hang out with Dakota and pretty much anywhere he wanted to go. You know, Dakota would go with him. So for a couple of periods a day, and that was really interesting to me as a school administrator. But, you know, he had that gift. But I'll share this with you, as an administrator, as a teacher, you never know who you have sitting in front of you. You have a huge impact on a daily basis. And you don't realize that. A lot of times we take it for granted of who's sitting there in front of you and the impact that you can make on a daily basis. And I think that we, you know, we don't look at it that way a lot of times. You know, me and Dakota, we've just had a relationship. You know, we've gone out to eat at his farm with his grandparents and his parents and just built that relationship with a student. Like I say, I got to know him really well. And I just do athletics. But like I say, he spent his time in my office. So we had a lot of conversations. So that's the thing about, you know, being a teacher. It's about building relationships. I know Mr. Frank is, you know, that's one of the things that he's gonna, I know gonna hammer home. Because like I say, you don't know who's sitting in front of you. One of the things I'll share with you in this relationship, it's been ongoing. You know, I know when he was training to go to the Middle East and, you know, he kept telling me he's in Hawaii. I said, why are you in Hawaii trying to go to the Middle East? But everything that he was doing, their group was gonna be first aid. The last phone call I got from him before the event was, he said, it's not gonna be good. You know, he knew. And that was hard on me. That was really hard on me. And the day that he made that phone call, you know, I didn't get a buy or anything, you know, it was just, pretty much it's gonna be pretty bad. I shared that with the football team that day. And that was tough. That was tough. But he's had a huge impact on me because of that ongoing relationship. He felt like he could trust me. And that's the thing about making that impact. You know, you got that chance. You got that chance. But, you know, every day, you don't know, it's gonna walk through your doors. And I've been blessed to be able to be a part of his life. And I know Miss Tana. And, you know, it's been huge for me. I've been glad that he's safe at home. And I know he'll tell you, when he gets up here, those four guys that he pulled out, you know, just looking at those families and those eyes, you know, he felt like he let them down. That's the first thing when he called me. He said, he said, I let my team down. I love Dakota. Like I said, we got an opportunity to make a huge impact as teachers. So remember that when you're going there tomorrow. You got a huge impact. You can make a huge impact on people. Thank you.