Partnership Educators,
When Fred's car skidded off the road and crashed in Western Pennsylvania and entire industry held its breath. When he died of his injuries, engineers all over the world were struck silent. Fred's dreams were what futures are made of. Fred was the one who envisioned things during his life that we now take for granted.
Ever since Fred's first day in the automobile business, one revolutionary concept haunted him. He wanted to make a car that could care for itself while it ran. He wanted to have that car tell the driver that something major has gone wrong and what needed to be done. Motorized vehicles wore out too quickly Fred said. He wanted a vehicle that could monitor all of its systems and thus stop trouble before it starts.
From the beginning, Fred was a performance-minded engineer. The engines he designed won top competitions including the French Grand Prix. Then later when he began to design family cars he continued to stress performance and speed. Then Fred produced his masterpiece. It had a powerful eight-cylinder engine with dual overhead cams and 246 horsepower. It showed 150 on the speedometer but would honestly do 120 on the open road. It was the fastest passenger car everywhere. The most incredible thing about this car was that it was computerized. The instrument panel was full of sophisticated indicators that tracked everything from the age of the engine oil to the level of the water in the battery. If something wasn't correct then it would flash the appropriate dash light to let the driver know of a problem.
Today's car has caught up with Fred's Model J super machine. I didn't mention that Fred's car wreck in Pennsylvania was in 1932. His amazingly modern car that reported problems and checked itself out while driving was on the market in 1929 during the depths of the depression. Fred Duesenberg introduced his Model J over eighty years ago. But today we still say, whenever we want to point to anything that it is the best there is, we say "Hey that's a Doozy."
The best there is doesn't adequately describe our schools and the people who work in them. If "Doozy" is the correct term for the best, then you are all Doozys. Thanks for your commitment to your service to kids no matter what you get in return.
I also want to congratulate a couple of outstanding award winners in our district. Congratulations to Rich Hall for being named Elementary Principal of the Year and Kim Bryant for being named as Special Education Administrator of the Year this week. Well deserved you two and thanks for making us better.
Everyone enjoy your weekend,
Rob