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April 29, 2005
Ruben Gonzalez, three-time Olympic athlete, national luge champion, and author of “The Courage to Succeed,” will be the keynote speaker for the Talented and Gifted (TAG) Exchange Day, to be held on the Morningside College campus on Wednesday, May 4, from 9 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. The event is sponsored by Morningside College and the Sioux City Community School District (SCCSD) TAG Department.
Gonzalez’s address “Becoming Unstoppable: Success Secrets of a Three-Time Olympian” focuses on simple, yet profound ways individuals can deal with the challenges they face daily.
More than 220 ninth and tenth grade TAG students and their teachers from the SCCSD, South Sioux City Community Schools (SSCCS), Sergeant Bluff-Luton School District, and Dakota Valley School District in North Sioux City, S.D., are registered to attend the event.
The coordinators of TAG Exchange Day are Nancy Mounts, director of the Regional Center for Teaching and Learning at Morningside College; Jean Johnson, head TAG teacher of SSCSD; and Shelley Molland and Fritz Burow, TAG teachers at East High School in Sioux City.
The day will begin with a general session and keynote address by Gonzalez in Klinger-Neal Theatre, 3700 Peters Avenue. Students will then break into groups for a sequence of three sessions focusing on the principles outlined in “Habits of Mind: A Developmental Series,” published in 2000 by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development in Alexandria, Va.
Each session will include discussion of one or more of the 16 principle habits outlined in the series along with a planned activity that incorporates the habits. The habits include thinking flexibly, persisting, managing impulsivity, striving for accuracy, taking responsible risks, and thinking independently, to name a few. Each session will be lead by junior TAG students from East High School.
Gonzalez was 21 years old before he took up the sport of luge and just four years later was competing in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada. He competed twice more, during the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, and the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is the founder and president of Olympic Motivation, a company dedicated to inspiring and equipping individuals and businesses to get better results.
In addition to his book, Gonzalez is the author of several articles on peak-performance and has produced numerous audio and video learning systems. He has appeared on national television on ABC, CBS, and NBC, and has been featured in Time magazine, as well as publications in Canada, Germany, Switzerland, France, Austria, and Argentina.
For more information on the TAG Exchange Day, contact Nancy Mounts at 712-274-5139, or mounts@morningside.edu, or Morningside’s office of Public Relations at 712-274-5320.
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Author and three-time Olympic athlete Ruben Gonzalez to be featured speaker for Talented and Gifted Exchange Day at Morningside College