My First Trip to a Conference

This weekend I flew down to Olive Branch, Mississippi with Liz Ziner ('10).

We were attending the annual Presidents and Emerging Leaders Conference that Kappa Delta holds. It was a great learning opportunity and a lot of fun to see so many Kappa Deltas from across the country. Boy, is Greek Life different around the country! The basics are the same, but some of the things I heard about were so elaborate. Understandable, when there are chapters out there with over 100 people in them. That's incomprehensible to me! Anyway, other than learning about being a better leader, we did a couple really neat things. First, we got to visit Kappa Delta Headquarters, which is located in Memphis, Tennessee. I love me my history, and this was right up my alley:

One of Kappa Delta's national philanthropies is the Girl Scouts of America. Together they formulated a program called Uniquely Me! that focuses on empowering girls to gain self-esteem. The spokesperson for this program is SuChin Pak (yes, the MTV personality), and she came to talk to us about this program and encourage us all to get our chapters involved with the girl scouts by holding Uniquely Me! events.

The last neat thing I'll talk about was seeing Bonnie Purvis Warren, Kappa Delta's National President, in her element. She really is a great woman and perfectly suited for her role. She said that somebody in an airport once asked her what she did. She responded, "I'm the head of a non-profit women's group of over 200,000 women that has given over 8 million dollars to Prevent Child Abuse America, is partners with the Girl Scouts of America, and focuses on empowering young women to be their best." He said, "My God, what do you do?!" And she replied, "I'm the National President of Kappa Delta Sorority." :)

(I have a bichon frise, too!)

After that exciting, whirlwind of a weekend, I'm happy to be back. Beloit is great to come home to and I couldn't be happier to settle back into the routine. And, I'll admit, ready for next weekend already!