Merit Academy

A few years ago, right before our 650 mile journey, I had the chance to visit a local school called Merit Academy. I was able to talk about what we do and try to raise some money for Bridge of Love. Recently we were contacted by a teacher at the school, Mrs. Moody, and asked to speak for her class. This opportunity is a dream come true to me. When I was 12 and living in South America, an Englishman came and spoke at my school. He was riding his bike for two years around the entire world! It was inspiring. When Kenton and I did our trip we tried to speak at schools because I wanted to inspire young kids like I had been.

Merit Academy is a pretty awesome school. The class we were asked to speak at is a service class! I wish I had been able to take something like that in High School! I asked the kids about the class and they said that the school requires students to do a service project or to take the class. What a great curriculum!


Tanner and I went to the class to present. We shared information about who we are and what we do. Our main goal was to teach the kids that: 1. Everyone has something they feel passionate about which can be used to serve others. 2. Service is not always easy nor is it convenient. There are drawbacks and trials will arise which one will have to push through because... 3. Service is worth doing and needs to be done. The rewards, intrinsic and extrinsic, that come from serving others makes the difficulty more than worth it. Also, as human beings, we have the responsibility to help others and lift the collective burden of the world to make it a better place.

We loved the presentation although we weren't sure if the kids did. I have a hard time reading teenagers responses, it made me feel old. Mrs. Moody contacted us a few days later and said the kids LOVED us. That made us feel good. She invited us back again and I was able to go present again to another class. After this presentation one of the students came up and asked how he can get involved. I got his info and we are going to talk to him soon. It was edifying to see how the things we have been doing are inspiring other young people to serve.

Tanner and Mason at Merit Academy

Push Race Results

The Push Race team. We were sad that Kenton wasn't able to make it because we had a lot of fun.

Well I would say an update on the Push Race is a few months overdue.

Back in August our team participated in Provo's first ever Longboard Push Race. We were approached by Recyclops who was in charge of recycling and garbage for the event and wanted to sponsor a team to participate in the race. There were two different races happening. A one mile individual race and a five mile team race. Since the prize for the individual race was $2,000 everyone on the team wanted to compete in both events.

Tanner speeding along with Scott right behind

The individual race ran in heats, with the top five on every heat progressing to the final race. I am happy to say that each team member qualified for the final race. The team race was scheduled right before the race for individual finalists. About four teams were signed up to compete and we were confident that we could win. Our confidence must have scared off all the other teams because none of them showed up for the race, and we won by default. I was a little disappointed that we weren't able to showcase our team skills in a competition but when we were handed our prizes I couldn't complain.

All day the events had run pretty smoothly, with enough time between the heats for competitors to peruse the booths and stands set up by local longboard shops and charities and enough space on the track to race safely. The last race was a little disappointing. Previously the qualifying heats had 10 racers. The final race had about 25 competitors which really crowded the track. Depending on placement in the qualifying race competitors were given different positions on the start line...it was crowded.

The race began and we were off! Due to the crowding placement was hard to establish. Sadly Danny and Ben Smith crashed into each other and both went to the ground. They quickly got back on their boards and made up for lost ground. Ben ended up getting 5th place with Danny close behind. None of us won the $2,000 but we had a lot of fun competing. The event was well done and I think a lot was learned about how to run a Push Race. We are looking forward to competing again next year.

Three of the team at the start line

Ben and Danny's dad came to cheer us on.

Our prizes. Despite the win by default we are pretty excited.