The beginning of school is always one of my favorite times of year.  The days are starting to get shorter and a bit cooler, football season is just about upon us and I am back to a regular schedule in a sense.  I thought about all of this while at Lake Travis High School (LTHS) this morning to get my freshman daughter's schedule and books.  The school has been expanded in a major way and is looking great.  I got to see a mom and her two daughters who I have known thanks to schools for many years and that was fun.  I got to see some of the staff at LTHS and that was great.

As for the schedule reference, I was talking about how the beginning of another school year gets me back on track with something I truly love.  I am the Lakeway-Lake Travis Rotary Club adviser to the Interact Club at LTHS.  Interact is a community service club sponsored by Rotary and I have been involved with Interact at LTHS for 6 school years.  The club has struggled with membership recently as there are over a dozen clubs meeting at the same and several of the other clubs require mandatory attendance or the kids will be kicked out.  As a consequence, Interact over the last several years has had around 35 members on paper, but only 20 or so showing up for meetings.  Even with membership down, the kids have had amazingly good results with service projects.

Many of the kids I have gotten to know through Interact have been absolutely wonderful.  Interact isn't just about community service; it is also about developing leadership skills.  The job of the faculty adviser and me is not to lead, but to provide support, advice and resources for the officers who run the club.  Watching some of these kids develop as leaders has been amazing.  Hearing about what some of them who have gone off to college have done and are doing has been awesome.  One is getting a Rotaract Club started at her college.  Rotaract is sort of the college version of Rotary or Interact.  Another was instrumental in putting together the first American Cancer Society Relay For Life at her college and they raised quite a bit of money.  I love hearing things like that!

On to football...  I have loved watching football since I was a little kid.  Watching pro football isn't as fun as it used to be.  It is too much about showboating and money these days.  I love watching college ball (yes, I'm a UT fan) and am looking forward to watching Lake Travis High School football.  The team won state for the first time last year and now has one of the top quarterbacks in the country, Garrett Gilbert.  This guy is going to be loads of fun to watch.  The second game of the season is against 5A (Lake Travis is 4A) powerhouse Westlake High School and will be on Fox Sports Southwest.  Westlake was the only team LTHS lost to last year

Summer is about over and all is good in the world again.