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We have one of our group who traveled, growing up, over twenty-six times to Australia to go to a family farm there and now he somehow manages to find time to practice law and tend to an active farm at the same time. We’ve got a busy prosecutor who tells us that her proudest achievement was adopting her daughter from Kazakhstan as a single mother. One of our Canadian inductees – we have six Canadians as part of our group – has argued many interesting cases before the Canadian Supreme Court, which we learned a couple days ago happens to be a court seated with comedians. We have a number of Division 1 athletes. We have one in- dividual who somehow managed to finish his final year of eligibility playing college soccer while in his first year of law school. You’ll probably recognize this fellow walking around, because when he does, it’s like a total eclipse of the sun, but he played Pac 10 football and was in the Aloha Bowl. We have another who played football under Tom Osborne at Nebraska, and then later ran with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. And one who wanted us to know that in a high school football game he threw seven interceptions. Now, on the spectrum of how cool is that, we have a patent lawyer who had his wife bring their sailboat up to Boston Har- bor while she watched him in trial, and as soon as he got the winning verdict, they left the courthouse, got on the sailboat and went on an eight day cruise down south to their home. We have a criminal lawyer with over 200 felony jury trials. We have a member here who played Division 1 women’s hockey and who hiked to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower in less than 22 minutes. And in case you’re wondering, that’s 377 vertical feet. We have one inductee who grew up in New England on the same street as Stephen King, and behind his house was a pet cemetery. One of our prosecutors holds the unique distinc- tion of representing the state in multiple moonshining cases, always dicey to take to trial because of the odds that the jury will have a customer or two on it. We have the federal public defender for the Northern Dis- trict of Florida who is right now representing fifty men on death row. God bless them. You want to talk about tenacity? We have one member who had a six-week homicide trial and learned that her mother passed away on the day she had to cross-examine the state’s main cooperating witness. Now, many had humble beginnings. We have one who paid for college with prize winnings earned from showing sheep at 4-H and another who grew up in Montana, where she learned how to suck venom out of snake bites and get away from bears. Now, I just have to say our Canadian friends could be so humble, such as this: “I am probably a pretty boring per- son compared to all the others, but I was one of the first women to practice criminal defense in the entire prov- ince of Quebec . . . and I once hiked Mount Kilimanjaro for a fundraising.” Under the category of what did you do during the pandem- ic, we have a public defender who was so impacted by the mental health issues in the criminal justice system that she decided to go back to school and get a master’s degree in clinical psychology, which beats my own record for how many Netflix series did I binge during the pandemic. Finally, we have a martial arts instructor, who four years ago donated a kidney to a complete stranger. So we’re awaiting from the Papacy news of his canonization any day now. But one thing that all of them had in common, I can tell you – everybody wrote a reference to their spouse and their family and their children and loved ones. It’s an inductee class that is very well grounded and very well supported. The American College has a long tradition of exemplifying the ideal of E pluribus unum. Out of the many, one. There really seems to be a unity of diversity with this group. It’s remarkable. You know, it’s my view that the practice of law is a noble profession, it’s honorable, and for all of us here it’s not just what we do, it’s who we are. I’m very fortunate, one of my mentors is here tonight. I don’t know that I would be here without John Francis Ann Tucker of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the example he set for me. As I conclude, would you all join me and could we just take ten seconds of silence for you to remember your mentors and those special people who helped influence you, and to let your heart feel some gratitude for them and to give thanks for this special contribution that they’ve made to your life. I’ll keep the time. _______________________ On behalf of the inductee class of 2023, we thank you. SUMMER 2023 JOURNAL 64 But none of us got here alone, did we? In 1997, Fred Rogers, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, was presented a lifetime achievement in television award, and as he stood there in an ill-fitting tux clutching his Emmy, instead of bragging and talking about his distinguished accomplishments, he asked the group to join him in a moment of silence and reflection and to think about those mentors, those special people who early in their life really influenced them in a positive way and helped them to become the success they now enjoy. And I would like to do the same here.