Gibson County - Lyles Station and Toyota Motor Manufacturing

The Connect with Southern Indiana session for Gibson County was held February 7, 2014 starting at Lyles Station Historic School and Museum. The Lyles Station website (http://lylesstation.org/) describes the location as "as one of the last remaining African American settlements in the state. Settled in the early 1800's this community's heritage is preserved in the renovated Lyles Station School. It's Heritage Classroom," (seen below and to the right) "provides students the opportunity to experience a day in the life of school children in the early 1900's."

The school also houses a museum, gift shop, and meeting facilities, which is where we had the content portion of the Connect session. We started the day with the usual meet and greet with breakfast, followed by a review of last session.

This session was focused on finding your purpose and meaning, which is a very thought provoking topic. It's not always easy to find purpose and meaning, but it is key to being happy. Coach B introduced a concept known as "The Mix." The Mix is a combination of things you have to explore to find your purpose.

• Passion: What resonates with you? Passion is how you find your purpose and internal self. Love and passion are connected: what you are passionate about you will often love and be great at. 
• Talent: What do you bring to the table? What can you do? What are you good at? Passion does not equal talent. It takes 10,000 hours (4 years) to be good at something.
• Self-reflection: You must reflect to improve your strengths and weaknesses. Don't let yourself get complacent doing something your good at, but something you aren't passionate about. Its important to figure out what you want/can do before you get into something too deep that you don't love. 
• Action: You have to take steps to get where you want to be. Surround yourself by people who will accept, encourage, facilitate, etc. 

I find myself struggling with my Mix. Trying to bring together what I'm good at, what I am passionate about, and what someone will pay me to do is tricky. I'm still not sure I've figured out where I can get all of those in the right proportions. 

Then we were asked to identify our purpose. We did this by answering some important questions to steer us in the right direction: Why do you matter (in the context of this program, exclude service to God and family)? What are your strengths? What are your passions? What are important elements from your personal history? What would you like to see change in the world around you?

My purpose stemmed from my passion for environmental science and hazards/disasters. Some people don't understand how I can get excited about something that hurts people. I don't like that people get hurt, but I respect and am fascinated by the power of our environment. I studied the Mississippi River and the 2011 flooding as an undergraduate at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and have never lost my passion for the subject. 

I live in Henderson, KY and drive over the Ohio River every morning that I go to work or class in Evansville, IN. When I drive over the Ohio River, I don't just see a beautiful river with the sunrise reflected upon the seemingly calm surface. I see a force of nature that is an avenue of economic transport, a recreational fishing/boating/camping destination, a supplier of nutrients/sediment, and also a potential hazard that can kill dozens or leave millions homeless. It's not a matter of liking people suffering; its about understanding how and why things happen to keep history from repeating itself, which in turn saves people from continued heartache. 

From that, I derived my purpose: To increase understanding and respect of the undervalued, unappreciated, or misunderstood by challenging typical thinking and inspiring critical, intelligent discussion and solutions. 

When we shared our purposes with everyone, there were a few that stuck with me:

1. Improve society by bringing the environment in sight and in mind. (Brenton)
2. Inspire others (especially young people) to make a difference. (Linda)
3. Be selfless and create insight in the selfish. (Johnna)

After concluding the content portion of the session, we went to Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Indiana. If your in the area and are able to visit Princeton, Indiana you HAVE to go to the Toyota plant for a tour.

There is a full visitor's center in addition to tour offerings. Check out  http://www.tourtoyotaindiana.com/. The visitors center is set up to be self-guided and is packed with information and interactive gadgets. I was entertained by the different stations and I know I will be taking my future kids someday! Unfortunately, you are not permitted to take cameras into the plant itself, but it is a definite must-do for anyone who is interested in cars, machines, robots, production, or really anything. LOL! Be sure to book your tour in advance though, as I just looked and some of the available times book up in advance!

This suspended Toyota Tundra shows all of the different components that make up the truck. The challenge is to find the key...Although the Indiana plant doesn't produce the Tundra anymore, the suspended truck took years to plan and execute and will remain in the visitors center. The plant produces the Sequoia SUV, the Sienna minivan (the tour explores the Sienna), and the Highlander. Just at the beginning of this year 2014, the Indiana plant began producing the Highlander Hybrid, which had previously been made in Japan. They are also producing right-hand drive vehicles for export. 

The Toyota plant with the visitors center and the tour blew my mind. After leaving, I called everyone who I could think of who would listen to me ramble about its awesomeness. :) There are other attractions in Gibson County besides Lyles and Toyota, like the Barn Quilt Trail, Azalea Path, and covered bridges. More information about Gibson County attractions, dining, and lodging can be found at http://www.gibsoncountyin.org/. 

Warrick County - Preservation Hall 1/24/14

The second Connect with Southern Indiana session was held in Warrick County, Indiana. Warrick County is most known for Historic Newburgh, which puts on several big events throughout the year including The Wine, Art, and Jazz Festival, Ghost Walks, and Newburgh Celebrates Christmas (see http://historicnewburgh.org/ for more details). We met at Preservation Hall in Newburgh, IN, which houses the Newburgh Museum.

During the first Connect session, we all filled out the Basadur Creative Problem Solving Profile (CPSP) Inventory. In the morning we split up into groups based on our dominant quadrant. I am a Quadrant III, a.k.a. an Optimizer, which I think is accurate. My quadrants were all very similar, but III was slightly larger. 

In these groups we came up with 2 lists: Things we like doing in groups/teams and things we don't like doing in groups/teams. I found it very interesting that each of the 4 quadrant groups had similar, yet very different answers to this question that reflected the dominant quadrant. As quad.3's, we liked exploring options, facilitating discussion, staying focused and making tangible progress while in groups. We did not like trying to make final decisions (we felt that group discussion should enable a leader to make the final call, but it takes too much time to nail down some things in a group setting) and we REALLY didn't like tangents, wasting time, getting off-topic, or backtracking in groups. 

After the quadrant group exercise, we were divided into balanced groups based on the profiles. This group was our Shirt Group, and the goal was to create a unique insignia for the 2014 Connect and design a shirt with this new insignia, the USI logo, the Connect logo, and USI Outreach and Engagement logo. Our group went with a puzzle theme, because it seemed to really capture program with people from different disciplines, counties, and walks of life coming together to make something greater than could be made individually. After pitching the idea to the other groups, we voted on our favorite. Although my group's idea made it to the final round of voting, another idea won. The winning idea had to do with another theme that was embraced by the class along with the puzzle, which was the graffiti artist concept (see the first session post for more details). 

We ended the session with touring the museum and walking around historic, downtown Newburgh. Some interesting facts about Newburgh:

• First settled in 1803, Newburgh is one of the oldest communities in southwestern Indiana
• Originally called Sprinklesburg, later Newburgh, the community grew to be the largest riverport between Cincinnati and New Orleans by 1850
• The first shaft for deep vein coal mining in Indiana was sunk here in 1850 by a pioneer of the industry, John Hutchinson.
• Newburgh captured - July 18, 1862. The first town north of the Mason-Dixon Line to be captured by the Confederate forces during the War Between the States. Brig. General Adam R. Johnson, with a guerrilla band, crossed the Ohio River and confiscated supplies and ammunition without a shot being fired.