News and Journal
By Jim Hunt for the News and Journal
The alarm rang at 3:00 a.m. Sunday, and I sprang out of bed like a firefighter headed to a threealarm blaze, except my emergency gear consisted of a navy blazer, a fresh pack of throat lozenges, and a keynote address I’d been rehearsing in my sleep all week. Destination: Biloxi, Mississippi, where I’d open the Mississippi Municipal League’s annual conference.
Travel days for a speaker aren’t glamorous; they’re scavenger hunts where the prizes are ontime flights and working microphones. I’d packed my suitcase the night before, sport coat, pants, my good dress shoes and a flash drive with three backup copies of my slide deck tucked into my laptop bag (right next to a printed copy, because WiFi is often a challenge). One more headtotoe patdown of my pockets, then off to Pittsburgh International. At 4:30 a.m., that normally congested highway of I79 is like a private driveway, and I cruised into an airport parking spot right outside the terminal.
Two flights and a Charlotte layover later, I arrived on the Gulf Coast with just enough time to remember what I’d forgotten: sleep. My preconference workshop, three hours on nurturing an entrepreneurial mindset in city hall, began at 8:30 a.m. Monday. When I entered the cavernous room, only one earlybird attendee sat waiting. We chatted about potholes and possibilities until the seats filled, and the clock said, “Showtime.” Three hours, 65 PowerPoint clicks, and one drained water pitcher later, I hobbled out sounding like I’d swallowed sandpaper. Panic meter: elevated. The keynote was less than 24 hours away, and I suddenly understood why singers cancel tours for “vocal rest.”
That night I ordered hot tea, honey, and the quietest entrée on the menu—no spicy Cajun to inflame alreadytesty vocal cords. Then I spent the next six hours…not sleeping. Ideas kept sneaking out of the hotelroom shadows. I scribbled them on the conference notepad until the clock again glowed 5:00 a.m.
Tuesday morning rituals: shave, selfdiagnose (“testing, one two, one two”), and reassure myself that the voice had returned, maybe an octave lower, but serviceable. At the convention center, the A/V crew hid a microphone wire beneath my tie, taped a battery pack to my back, and did the obligatory sound check: “Louder, softer, walk the stage.” I glanced at 1,500 empty chairs and felt that familiar feeling of terror and excitement that keeps speakers signing contracts even when airline seats keep shrinking.
The honor guard posted the colors, two city clerks sang a goosebumpraising National Anthem, and League President Billy Nowell of Cleveland, Mississippi, offered an introduction generous enough to make my mother blush. I stepped to the podium, looked out at a sea of mayors and councilmembers, and exhaled. The room wasn’t full of strangers; it was full of colleagues who live and breathe the daily miracles and migraines of local government.
For the next 45 minutes we laughed about cityhall WiFi passwords and pothole politics, imagined drones as first responders, and explored how entrepreneurial thinking can turn tight budgets into laboratories for innovation. My earlier laryngitis scare? Gone—chased away by adrenaline and the collective energy of 1,500 dedicated public servants.
When the applause faded and the handshakes began, a mayor from a tiny Delta town thanked me for “speaking our language.” That single sentence is why speakers endure 3:00 a.m. alarms, layovers, and sleepless hotel nights. Because somewhere in every audience is a person who carries our words back home and uses them to make a street safer, a park greener, or a community stronger.
So, yes, I returned to West Virginia exhausted and a little hoarse. But I also came home inspired, reminded once again that the real keynote happens after the speech, when ideas meet action in America’s cities and towns. And if that means another predawn dash to the airport next month, well, I’d better start laying out tomorrow’s clothes tonight.
