In many ways I find it difficult to accept the idea that this time last year I was not a Knight. Many of the guys whom I would now regard as brothers were often times either people I hardly knew, or didn’t know at all one simple year ago. As we begin the selections process, time and time again I am reminded of how fortunate I am to have the opportunity to be a Knight. The experience I have had at service has been incredible; albeit, though I myself had a rough start. The mentee that I have been working with, Aaron, is hilarious and tells some of the most heartwarming stories. He loves talking about his horses and how he’s been teaching his neighbor’s children how to ride them. Aaron can also beat me in just about any sort of board game imaginable, the only one I stand a chance in is Connect Four, but that is because we play a revised version, where instead of taking turns you simply jam your pieces into the slots as fast as you can and the first one to connect four wins. He is also quite the artist and he frequently critiques my inability to stay in the lines, and the fact that I colored a turtle orange one time (he reminds me of that often).
Service is just one of the three pillars of Knights. In my brief time in the organization, I have seen the leadership ability inherent in so many fellow Knights, and I have seen us all grown as brothers. I’m always amazed at how far we have come as a group. Maya Angelou stated that, “I don’t believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.” In the same vein, you cannot simply put thirty people in a room for a night once a week and expect them to become brothers. As a group, we have worked to become as close as we are. It required that we participate, we get up early when we don’t want to, we do our duty even when we have a million other responsibilities hounding down on us, when it comes down to the wire, we press on—that is what so amazes me about this group. To find thirty (sure, sixty if you include the Setons, thanks for “Shame”) people with such dedication is really quite a rarity and I feel very blessed to be part of something so incredible.
-Kurt Wohlers
Knight of Gonzaga
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