Byrd Leavell

I don’t see myself as an activist.  But what would happen would be, in school, if you’re on the sports events, and being captain of the team, you were trying to keep the whole team together.  The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, clearly.  So, you try to keep things moving along, and kid with people, and get along.  Then, the school part, I was president of the class three or four years.  And in that capacity, you try to keep things going in a positive direction.  And so, I think between meetings, and being on different committees and things like that, you try, in that role as president, try to get everybody involved and try to help things out.  But I wasn’t on the far edge being an activist, but I was living in the present and trying to make the best of what was there.  So, I think that came with the territory.  And so, then, therefore, we had lots of different groups of friends, and committees, and things you did.  But that was just routine.  That was part of school, part of activities.  So, I think I very much enjoyed my high school experience and it was very enriching to me and I learned a lot from the folks I was around.  So, I was a participant, and trying to lead in in the right direction.