An introduction I'll never forget . .

Jamie sure knows how to make someone feel like a million bucks. I arrived a little late to the Best Buddies talent show yesterday and, he being the great emcee that he is, introduced me as I walked in. His enthusiasm was overcoming - I have never felt more welcomed.

I met Jamie in the Center for Service and Learning at BYU where he volunteers over 900 hours each year. Before coming to the Center almost four years ago, Jamie served at the Orem City Library and has completed church service missions at the Bean Museum and Museum of Art at BYU.

Jamie’s hard work to help student volunteers certainly does not go unnoticed. He is the data analyst; a task that requires hours of work with financial forms that he makes sure are accurate. I must admit that I have purposely neglected to sign forms just so he would call and leave a message informing me of my error. Jamie leaves the best messages.

Last school year as I was serving as the Center’s event director, Jamie was an answer to my prayers. I was really sick with the flu the night before an event I was planning for more than one hundred of our community partners. At nearly 10:00 p.m. as I laid on the sofa thinking about how I could possibly get everything done in my condition, I said a silent prayer that somehow I could prepare for the event the next morning. Within minutes, I received a call from Jamie Taylor asking if he could take the early bus to arrive early the next day and help me get ready for the Community Partner Luncheon.

Jamie will always serve others more than we can serve him.

We’re horse people, promise . .

This past weekend we had to put Fiddle down. We were all sad to lose another horse and I sincerely think my dad was deep in mourning. He lost several thousand dollars, but more than anything, he lost a dear friend.

My friend, Casey, wrote this poem in memory of Fiddle.

“You have lost a dear friend,
In Fiddle your horse, his life did end.
He followed the path of other horses
on the Christofferson Place,
And now he’s in a deep hole with
dirt covering his face.
No longer can the family jump onto
his back and fly.
For Fiddle is now chasing
white calves in the sky!”

*Note: Fiddle was a girl. And I’ll explain the white calf thing sometime.

After conference on Sunday we sat around and talked about all of our horse memories – the good and the bad.

This is a list of the horses that have passed away under our care.

Disclaimer: I just want you to know that we didn’t name any of them ourselves.

• The horse that lost an eye (none of us could remember his name, sad but true).

• Chips

• Buzz Saw

• Trail Buster

• Rosy

• Two Bay

• Funny

• Annie

• Buck

• Cody

• And most recently, Fiddle.

We enjoyed basking in the memories of our long lost friends, but after the list was made my dad sighed and said, “Next time I’m getting a mountain bike.”