Recent high school commencement speech.

"I am probably the least likely person to be addressing a group of soon to be college students. Unlike my friends, I am not very scholarly. When I was in school there was no such thing as attention deficit. You were either a good kid or a bad kid. Guess which one I was."

"No matter how hard I tried I just wasn't very good in school. So of course, when I graduated from high school, I was afraid to go to college."

"But I went, anyway.  For one semester, I tried hard but I still ended up with a 1.7. I failed. And you know it didn't kill me or even embarrass me."

"I went home to mom."

"She said,  'Kerry, you love clothes, why not go to a vo-tech school that specializes in clothes. A fashion merchandising school.' 'Wow', I thought. 'Could I do that?'"

"Mom says, 'Look in the back of your Seventeen magazine. There's a school, in Dallas, TX. -- Miss Wade's. Maybe, you could go there, graduate... and become a buyer for a big department store.' "

"Sounded like an opportunity. But, again, I was afraid. That far from home. By myself. In another school of all things. And a vo-tech school. What is that? You know back then nobody had heard of vo-tech schools."

"I wanted to be somebody. Just like you do. I wanted to make some money. Just Like you do. >And it didn't take a genius to figure out it wasn't going to happen to me unless I went for it. Unless, I took some chances. Stepped out of my...... comfort zone."

"You know I went to Dallas, with a scared, empty hole in my stomach. I was so home sick the first month that I thought I would die. Turns out...vo-tech shcools move slowly. They take six months to cover one subject. I went a year.  I took pre-law, first year accounting, marketing, english, business math, and of course, fashion design. And guess what, I graduated the top in my class. I wasn't stupid. I just hadn't figured out how to learn. And hadn't ever really been motivated."

"Now this is when I should end the story ... 'Then I got a great job and lived happily ever after.' But life is not like that. And it probably won't be that way for most of you. Self made men, really are...self made."

"I graduated from that vo-tech school in 1974. The year of the recession. Not a depression but similar. When the economy is bad and people are broke, the first thing they give up is dining out and buying clothes. Just my luck. My new industry was hit the hardest. No one was hiring. In fact they were cutting back."

"Well, I had to have a job. So I went to a temporary employment agency. They said "I have a job for you. Selling flags for a company named...get this... Betsy Ross Flag Girls.  Again, I'm afraid. Selling flags? I've never done anything like that before. But what could I do. I needed a job. I want to be somebody."

"Well I show up ready to learn how to sell flags. For a few days I set with the secretary who tells me everything she knows about flags. On the third day the boss man comes in, points to a map of Dallas on the wall and says 'Now drive out there and everytime you see a business with a flag or a flagpole, go in and ask them if they need to buy another flag.' "

"Me...a 19 year old girl, is suppose to go...alone...to an area, cold call and sell flags door to door to business people I've never met before. Yep, I'm scared. But I went anyway. I wanted to be somebody."

"You know, it wasn't that bad. Thinking about it was the hardest part. I worked for Betsy Ross Flag Girls for 6 months. I learned so much about myself, about business, and about other people, that I started my own flag company.  Now I make that sound easy but it wasn't."

"My boss at Betsy Ross flag girls turned out to be...not so great. So I was feeling kind of blue when, I came home to Little Rock to see my brother get married. Again, my mom, she says, 'Why don't you move home and sell flags for yourself.' "

" 'Could I do that?'  'Why not? You've been doing it in Dallas. All you need is a $15.00 city permit and a state sales tax number.'  'Cool!' (We used to say that word back then too.)"

"We looked in the yellow pages under flags to check out the competition. There was none. We called the secretary of state's office, a few schools and churches and asked where they bought their flags. Some said California. Some said Missouri, some order out of catalogs."

"Could I really do this? Was it really going to be that simple? Of course not."

"I was afraid. But I was going for it anyway. I went back to Dallas. Gave my resignation to Betsy Ross Flag Girls. Packed all my worldly possessions into my 1971, fast back, yellow camaro...and moved home."

"Starting a business really was quite easy. Mom and I got to think up a name. We knew we wanted it to start with an A. Because flags weren't readily available in Arkansas, I had wanted to name it...Available Flag and Banner Company."

" 'No Daughter of mine is going to be named Available anything!' "

"Hence the name Arkansas Flag and Banner."

"With my savings of $400.00, I bought a city permit, printed up business cards, made long distance phone calls to find a flag supplier for my new company."

"Again, just my luck. I missed the cut off date for the 1976 phone books and had to go all year without my company name in the phone book or in the yellow pages. But, no problem. I was back to my roots...door to door flag sales. Only this time for myself."

"Staying in business and making money was a lot harder than starting the business. For 9 years I worked part-time jobs to help suppliment my income. At this 9 year marker, I decided to go for it. Either make it or break it. I bought Yellow Pages ads in the seven surrounding states in the hopes of increasing my sales."

"I was afraid. Maybe not totally, afraid...but pretty nervous about loosing my money. A year later, It had paid off."

"I moved AFB out of my house, where I had been operating as a small mail order business while my daughter was young, into a small store front in downtown NLR."

"Nervous again. What if sales dropped off? Of course they didn't. Sales stayed good. In fact, too good. My suppliers couldn't keep up. So when the business was 12 years old I bought our first sewing machine and began to manufacture."

"When fast signs came to town, I got in the computer graphic banner business to keep up with them and the changing times. And when the Persian Gulf War broke out, in 1990, the demand for flags was so high that, I started a screenprinting division to try and meet that demand."

"If you were to ask, 'What is the secret of AFB's success?' "

"I would have to say 'We listen to life.' We see everything as an opportunity. Even our failures. We don't let fear be part of our decision making process. We make decisions based on facts. And the fact is if you don't try, you will never know."

"I challenge all of you to step our of your comfort zone. To go where your life leads you. To take advantage of the opportunities that are everywhere. To take some chances. And. try and be somebody.... somebody you don't even know yet."

"Good Luck!"