Daily Archives: January 18, 2012

By Luis Samarripa

Rough Draft

At the age of 27, Chad Hymas’ life changed instantaneously when an accident left him paralyzed.  President of his own communications company and an internet marketing company, Chad has been recognized by the state of Utah as the Superior Civilian of the Year.  At 37 years old, he is the youngest person ever to receive the CPAE award and be inducted into the National Speaker Hall Of Fame.  As a member of the National Speakers Association, Chad spoke at more than 220 events last year and travels as many as 300,000 miles a year.

Chad is also the author of the regionally best-selling book Soaring to New Heights.  Chad’s topics focus on leadership, teambuilding, customer service and mastering change.  He will not only inspire, but he will motivate people audience; he will create an experience that will touch everyone’s hearts for a lifetime.  Chad just wants to make a difference and help people realize that it is not always about them.

When he came to Meeker, and came to our school, he opened everyone’s minds to be better people, to encourage themselves, persevere, and to go far in life, no matter what obstacles are in the way.

By Calvin Shepherd

Rough Draft

                I never really knew how he got the way he was.  I would never describe has as dumb, he just misunderstood a lot.  He could hardly hear, and made the biggest influence on my class and most of all me.

                Elementary School, 5^th grade.

                Yes, I was immensely interested in the show “Prison Break.”  I was addicted to the thrill and the problem solving skills it took to break out.  I took me awhile to figure out how simulate the exact reenactment of the show, Bruce was there to help.  Cubbies around the school where used to hold the entrance to the school.  These cubbies became my prison cells.  Bruce was my warden and guard.  Days went faster by running the streets after an escape and being escorted to my cell by Bruce.

                Middle School came around and games became more and more lame.  Bruce being able to listen and work with me became my full time partner in classes.  Bruce wasn’t that hard to work with, he couldn’t understand which resorted to me doing most of the work.  I didn’t mind.  It was good for me and him.  We got work in the halls and got a lot more done.

                Without knowing how Bruce was and how happy he was even with his unfortunate disability, I don’t think I would appreciate the things I do today.  Bruce’s hard work and dedication to the sports he wasn’t able to play helped me to become better in sports because he never gave up even from the sidelines, neither did I.   Bruce’s abilities changed my life.

Name has been changed to protect Bruce’s privacy.

By Dom Devore

Rough Draft

Adversity is one thing, but this takes it to a whole new level.  On March 1^st 2011, it is published in “The New York Times” and “Mail Online” that the European Court bans gender as a factor in insurance.  This basically means that the ‘gender equality’ ruling means young men cannot be charged more for their car insurance – even though they are ten times more likely to have a serious crash.  Also pension and medical will have to be adjusted when the new ruling will become permitted on the 21^st of December this year. 

An example would be car insurance.  The Association of British Insurers’ predict that women drivers under the age of 26 may face a 25 percent rise in car insurance rates, with a 10 percent drop in rates for men within the same age group.  Currently, the standard practice across Europe is to base insurance rates on statistics about differing life expectancies or road accident records of the sexes. 

A woman driver under the age of 22 pays around $2,604.24 in car insurance while a young man is charged an average of $4,257.82.  This is because men under 22 are ten times more likely to have a serious crash, 25 times more likely to commit a driving offence and twice as likely to make an insurance claim. 

The risk difference between the sexes becomes less pronounced as both get older.  But the ruling means that in future gender cannot be taken into account when accounting premiums.  That means age will become the overriding factor when calculating insurance.  Hence young women can expect a rate hike of up to 25 percent.  But at the same time, an income a man receives for life from his pension will be cut by as much as 8 percent. 

Insurers grudgingly accepted the ruling, but said the change will be bad for customers and they maintained that their current policies were fair.  They insisted that the typically longer lives of women should be taken into account when offering life insurance policies, for instance.

Currently millions of insurance policies take gender into account.  The court ruled that practice as inappropriate since there are myriad other factors that could be considered.  Gender, however, is typically easy to check and can point to sound statistical conclusions, the industry says. 

A statement the court said to this was, “Taking the gender of the insured individual into account as a risk factor in insurance contracts constitutes discrimination.”

Until now, discrimination in setting insurance rates has been explicitly permitted under EU equal treatment rules.  It allowed the market to fix the price of a financial product based on the statistical likelihood of a person having an accident, falling ill or dying.  All EU insurance policies will be affected by the new ruling.