SOUTH OGDEN -- Breanna Panter was very impressed with a speech given by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and said she plans to take his advice and apply it to her own life.
Breanna is a 17-year-old girl and mayor of the South Ogden youth council. The council recently spent a day at the Capitol in Salt Lake City where Giuliani was a guest speaker.
"I loved his talk," Breanna said. "He talked about what it takes to be a good leader. He said you have to have a strong set of beliefs, you have to be optimistic and honest and you have to overcome fear. He said you have to turn fear into relentless preparation. That's just really good advice and it's exactly what I want to do."
Giuliani also spoke about 9/11, said youth council member Garrett Weeks, and told the audience it was a day where a lot of people showed their leadership skills. One example he cited was an event that took place on an elevator in the World Trade Center.
The power went out after one of the hijacked planes slammed into Tower One, Giuliani said. This caused the elevators to stop working. Six men were on one of the elevators. Most of them were executives with the exception of window-washer Jan Demczur carrying his bucket and a squeegee. As the men were trying to figure out how to get out of the elevator, Demczur realized they could use the pole on his squeegee to pry open the door so he directed the men in helping him.
The elevator opened to a thick wall. Demczur took the lead again and took the sharp edge of his squeegee handle to scrape away the wall. After digging through three layers of drywall they were able to free themselves from the elevator. Demczur is not only considered a hero, but a leader as well.
"His talk was just really amazing," Garrett said. "It was really neat to see him and listen to him talk."
Garrett said the group woke up at 5:30 a.m. and headed down to the Capitol. After arriving they had a continental breakfast and then watched a law enforcement committee talk about some bills.
"Then we got to see a House of Representatives session," he said. "It was really interesting to see how they discussed and passed bills."
Ashlee Laramie said she had never been inside the Capitol before the trip with the youth council.
"It was just a really neat atmosphere," she said. "And some of the bills really touched me. There was a family there talking about one of their members who died while taking a medication for pain and they were asking for the medication to be banned. They said a lot of people had been harmed by this medicine. It was really sad to listen to them."
The youth council was accompanied by advisers Lanette Weeks, Denise Dumas and Monique Benard. Other highlights included a talk by retired baseball player Dale Murphy who ended his career with 398 homeruns. He spoke on the qualities of a good coach and his "I won't cheat" foundation. The council also got to spend time with the South Ogden City council and mayor.
"It was a real treat to have them there," said Mayor Jim Minster. "We really enjoyed the day and were really touched by Rudy Giuliani's talk. Before 9/11 he was able to attend every funeral of every police officer and firefighter. After 9/11 he was still able to get to most of them even with the anthrax scares and everything else that was going on at the time."
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