All you need is love...and pea salad

June 29^th is the date each year when I celebrate being one of the luckiest men alive.  It’s the day that I married the beautiful Jane Brantlinger and began a lifelong adventure of love and happiness that continues on.

We had just picked a date and were ordering the invitations for a late summer wedding when I received my orders to report to the Army on July 4 for active duty. We scrambled for arrangements, available churches and wedding party travel schedules.  June 29 was our best option.  Jane had a lot of ideas, as you might imagine, about music, ceremony, reception and other details, while my main concern was whether or not I could rise again with my bad sports knees after kneeling for a long period of time during the vows.

I gave notice to my bosses on Capitol Hill and they said I would have a job when I got out of the service.  Good insurance, but I never went back.  We took a traditional approach…marriage license at the courthouse, meeting with the minister (who I didn’t know and haven’t seen since) and selecting the black tuxes that were devastatingly hot in the 90 degree, humidity-laden DC summer weather. Interestingly, ex-KING-TV reporter, Julie Blacklow’s father rented us the tuxes.  Julie and her father and I figured this out years later here in Seattle.

We had five days after the ceremony to drive from DC to Lawton, Oklahoma, where I would be going to artillery gunnery school at Ft. Sill.  I remember buying a Mobil Travel Guide and planning our stops in Holiday Inns across the country.  The most memorable part of those stays was the same pea salad that was served at the salad bar in every hotel.  It became our first family joke.

The only real damper on the trip was that I had to sell my beloved mustang and buy us a brand new, very roomy, Chevrolet Chevelle.  It was like a tank but it did hold everything we owned at that point in our lives.

The ceremony was held on a beautiful, hot, sunny day and all was on track until my best man opened his tux rental bag about 45 minutes before heading to the church.  There were no pants.  I considered making him stand in front of the crowd that way but Jane would have none of it. So we had to arrange a frantic hand-off with Julie’s dad on the berm of the Capitol Beltway.  It worked by the skin of our teeth.

We got married at high noon because one of Jane’s relatives told her that if both hands of the clock were pointing straight up, it was good luck.  In the long run that appears to be true, though I really think we've been pretty lucky regardless of the hands on the clock.  The ceremony went great. No problems at all, including both of my knees working when I had to get up from the kneeling position.

The reception was in a nearby hotel and we had a sit-down meal.  Jane and I circulated around to each table and were able to spend time with all our guests, which was a plus for us because we didn't know when we would see them again.  When it came time for toasts, I remember most my Uncle Tom (Dad’s brother) standing up and beginning with “As I stand here with an empty glass…” My father-in-law, our host, was a bit embarrassed, but he laughed.

As soon as the reception was over, we had to jump into travel mode to be in Lawton by the 4^th.  It was a wonderful day. Jane was beaming the whole time so you know I was happy. We were told we missed a great party at my parents’ house, when all our friends drank up every ounce of booze in the closet while singing and performing show tunes at the piano until the wee hours. However, the new Chevelle got us to Breezewood, PA at the entrance to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, on time and on schedule. I can still see Jane walking slowly around in the shallow end of the pool, trying not to get her wedding hair-do wet. She still looked radiant when we went out to dinner that night and had fried chicken in the best “Tom Jones-movie” tradition.

Today our memory box is overflowing.  I love Jane more and more each year we have together.  Good friends make good mates and we spent a long time becoming friends.  Still, when we’re listening to classical music on a CD, the radio or at the Symphony, Jane will turn to me and say “You know they played that at our wedding.” And my knees begin to ache.  All you need is love.

Surprised and humbled...

Yesterday at the University of Washington year-end Awards Ceremony, I was honored with the Teaching Excellence Award, the University’s top teaching award.  It surprised and gratified me.  First the distinction is special in itself, but perhaps more importantly, I have been rewarded so much already by seeing my students go out into the business and non-profit worlds and make a difference in public relations and strategic communications.  They number in the hundreds now. Every once in a while I meet someone and can’t remember where from, until they tell me they took one of my classes. All I can do is smile.

At the beginning of my career, teaching was never on the radar.  Even when I was asked to help structure a new year-long PR-focused program for UW, I have to admit I didn’t think about teaching in it. However, once I taught my first class, I think I was hooked.  I so enjoy the interaction, the focus and ideas that the students bring and the effort to keep on the cutting edge of the communications business.  I’ve never forgotten that I am not a trained teacher so many of my colleagues and friends have come to speak to my classes and they have always gotten the highest marks.  I appreciate them sharing their insights into this business very much. Their participation has given texture to the courses I teach. And, as always, I give special thanks to my lovely “teaching assistant” Jane, who keeps me on the straight and narrow.

What a happy surprise this award was. In my classes, I still use clips from the television show “West Wing” that took place in the communications office of the White House. In one important scene, several departments are involved in crafting and coordinating a special event with school children from around the country. After several failed attempts, the President asks his primary wordsmith to give it a try.  The words spew out in an intelligent, effective and conversational way which impresses everyone in the room.  The President turns to the person next to him and says, “He got it right.” That’s what I aspire to in my professional life and as a teacher. “Getting it right” in whatever you do is the biggest rush there is. This award will always hold a special place in my heart.

The UW Brief:

Dan McConnell, founding advisory board member and longtime instructor in the University of Washington’s Public Relations and Strategic Communications Certificate Program, has been recognized with the University’s highest award for teaching. At UW’s Professional and Continuing Education Awards Ceremony, McConnell was presented the Excellence in Teaching Award for his skills and commitment as a teacher from the business community.

McConnell was called into service to the University when the state cut funding of the school’s communications department.  He was instrumental in developing the year-long curriculum that touches all aspects of the public relations and strategic communications profession.  He has taught every course in the program over the years and has been integrally involved in keeping the courses current in today’s fast-paced communications world.

Presently, he is President and CEO of DMCPR specializing in the development of effective communications strategies, solutions to difficult crisis communications problems and experienced storytelling for a small group of clients spread all over the world. McConnell’s celebrated career has found him consistently on the cutting edge of strategic communications and digital media and his programs are perennial winners of major industry awards from the national public relations society’s Silver Anvil to American television’s national Emmy Award.

Jane has made me proud...again!

I am pleased to tell you that Jane has been elected to the Rainier Club Board of Trustees. The Rainier Club is a true Seattle institution. It’s an historic landmark and an integral part of Seattle’s history. Jane has recently served as Chair of the Arts Committee and will now become Vice Chair of the Program Council, which organizes all of the club's cultural activities. I am very proud of her. She not only works very hard in all her endeavors for this community but she also deeply cares about her commitments. That’s something quite special.

Here she is in front of a small portion of the club's magnificent collection of Edward Curtis photographs. My friend Tim Egan’s latest book, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis, chronicles Curtis’s life, much of which was spent living at the Rainier Club and paying for his board with his photographs.

By the way, I will continue to serve in my current capacity as Jane’s Spousal Unit. Now, here are few excerpts from the Rainier Club history to give you an idea of its importance to Seattle:

“Inhabited by only a few thousand settlers in the 1880s, Seattle was a rough and tumble frontier town lined with mud streets and wood-framed buildings. Three ambitious city-builders: Thomas Burke, William A. Peters and John Leary endeavored to create an exclusive meeting place where they could enjoy the company of like-minded individuals, play cards and sip brandy at the end of the day’s business and political struggles.

“On July 25th, 1888, aspiring Club members convened to formally incorporate The Rainier Club, named in honor of British admiral Peter Rainier, as a “boarding, lodging house, and restaurant,” in spite of the fact that the laws of Washington did not recognize private social clubs at that time.

“The Rainier Club was first housed in a 22-room Victorian mansion owned by James McNaught. The “Dudes of The Rainier Club,” as the press dubbed the original members, rented the house for $100 per month.

After the City’s great fire of 1889 and a couple of other moves, ...“club leaders retained Spokane-based architects Kirtland K. Cutter and Karl G. Malmgren to build a Jacobean-style building modeled on England’s Aston Hall at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Marion Street. No expense was spared on “modern” luxuries, including telephones in every room. Construction was completed by September 30, 1904 for “a trifle over $100,000” and the members then moved into the current home of The Rainier Club. 

“The Club survived the Depression and both World Wars thanks, in large part, to the leadership of its first true manager, Eddie Carlson, who served from 1937 to 1941 and later went on to lead Westin Hotels and United Airlines. In 1962, The Rainier Club became an integral part of the Seattle World’s Fair.  Many plans were first drawn, deals made, and key participants entertained and recruited in the Clubhouse as Carlson was a leading force behind the event that put Seattle on the world map.

I am happy to say on Jane’s behalf that ...“women were officially allowed membership on June 14th, 1977 and Judge Betty Fletcher became the first female member on August 22nd of that year. Luther Carr was nominated for membership on June 27th, 1977 and became the first African-American member. 

“On December 28th, 1986, The Rainier Club was officially recognized as an historical landmark by the City of Seattle.  Starting out as a boarding house for ambitious bachelors, the Club has become a bridge between Seattle’s past and future. It has hosted some of the most important meetings in the region’s history, including the planning of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, the reform of local government through the creation of Metro and the current City of Seattle and King County Charters, the financing of public works such as Forward Thrust, countless campaigns for school levies and bond issues, and fundraising efforts for United Way and other non-profit organizations.”