a word about this weekend’s Flinnsanity
Arizona is such a good place to remember, rediscover and reimagine who you are. Thanks for a great weekend, AZ! #FlinnReunion #phosho
Brian Indrelunas
btindrelunas
As some of you may have noticed (or witnessed firsthand) I was back in Arizona this past pre+weekend, and if you have been keeping up with my tweets or Facebook updates, you may be wondering the same thing Jake asked me at kickball tonight: "So what's up with these crazy Flinns?"
For those, like Jake, who aren't Arizonans, a quick word of explanation: I'm a Flinn Scholar, a recipient of a merit scholarship available to Arizona high schoolers that not only fully funds an education at an in-state public university (ASU, in my case) but also provides so much more — from all sorts of study-abroad opportunities to public-policy seminars to an incredible sense of family and community among the scholars. That last part definitely came to the fore this weekend.
See, the Flinn Scholars program has now been around for 25 years, meaning there are hundreds of us Flinns. (Fun fact courtesy of a Flinn Foundation timeline: "With its newest graduates, the Flinn Scholars community now includes 380 alumni. More than 120 call Arizona home; others live in 33 states and 11 nations around the world.") And a whole bunch of us — in- and out-of-state, current students and graduates — got together this weekend at the Valley Ho in Scottsdale for a couple days of Flinnsanity. (Another fun fact: We like to name things after ourselves. See also: Flinner, Flinncest.)
Yes, it was a reunion open to all 25 Flinn classes, and it was nothing short of amazing.
Over the course of the weekend, I got involved in deeply interesting conversations with my fellow Flinns about:
- what a company run by a Flinn alum is all about
- the demographics of neighborhoods in New York City
- combat medical training
- Cathedral City in the 1940s
- food and sustainability
- passing patterns in the NBA Finals
- being gay and coming out
- along with boats, babies, bathing and all sorts of other things.
In the course of all these impromptu discussions and the more formal sessions interspersed throughout, I got to meet new Flinns both young and old and also catch up with scholars from my year, the Flinn Class of 2004, and others who were in school around the same time.
Really, the breadth of people represented at the reunion — from brand-new freshmen who started their undergraduate careers just a few weeks ago to some of the first Flinns, who started college in 1986 — and the corresponding breadth and depth of knowledge and experience brought to the reunion were simply astounding. But I digress.
What I'm trying to say here is that all this talk on all these topics made me realize that I could use more of these sorts of discussions in my life. So if you notice that in off-hours, I'm occasionally trying to switch the topic off of newsroom shop talk, don't be surprised.
But that's really just one small instance where being back in Arizona among so many members of the Flinn family reminded me of who I am and prompted me to rethink what I'm going to be about from here on out. Also, Sunday and Monday's post-reunion stops in Tempe and Chandler played a role in all these ongoing thought processes too.
I'm still thinking through all of the specifics of what sorts of new projects, new emphases and new attitudes the Flinn reunion weekend will ultimately spur, but I'll keep you all updated as I figure it all out.