Now we have the distinguished service award. This award recognizes significant service benefiting the greater good. This can include volunteering, philanthropic leadership, military service, or contributions to the Minnitankka Alumni Association itself. The recipient of the distinguished service award is Scott Arley from the class of 2005. As a nonprofit leader, artist, and advocate, Scott Arley has spent his career empowering marginalized voices through the arts. As the first accessibility program director at the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, he has helped underrepresented artists secure vital resources while been in the community through a creativity, mentorship, and advocacy. After leaving the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, Scott started his own consultancy focused on strategic planning, accessibility assessments, training, and speaking engagements. Introducing Scott Arley is Sarah Larson from the class of 2008. [Music] Hi, my name is Sarah Larson, class of 2008, and I'm very happy to introduce Scott Artley. You'll see on Scott's resume that they were the first accessibility program coordinator at the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council and that they run their own consulting business helping artists and organizations all across the country. Um, but I wanted to take a little personal tour as well. I first knew Scott as one of those really cool high school theater students when I was still at MMW. So, I guess it makes sense that I would think of him as a wise, knowledgeable elder to come to for advice. uh which I did when I first starting started working in Minneapolis after college. I was trying to learn what is the deal with arts grants and funding and support for projects. So I met with Scott at a coffee shop and truly he ran through the entire landscape, the ins and outs of how to get started and I did secure funding with that first grant I applied to with Scott's advice. I know that Scott voluntarily taught a workshop for artists for many years that I attended on how to budget and file your taxes. Uh, and I saw Scott in and out of so many parts of the Twin Cities arts community over the last more than a decade as I myself grew to be part of that scene. Um, and throughout that time, I always looked to Scott as that knowledgeable uh, advising personality. uh the organizations and venues that Scott has been instrumental in leading, not to mention involved in advising and creating. It just goes on and on. Madame of the Arts, Patrick's Cabaret, Lightning Rod, Controlled Burn, the West Bank Music Festival in Cedar Riverside, Walker Arts Center, Patrick's Cabaret, did I say that one already? Mixed Blood Theater. I'm sure there's things that I don't know about and I resisted googling Scott because I assumed it would lead down a serious rabbit hole of projects, trainings, and insights that he's offered artists and organizations around the country and across the Twin Cities. Most recently, Scott brought together a group of LGBTQ Minnetonka alums during the pandemic to create a video project together at this time when feeling connected and feeling okay was really, really important. and he even coordinated a group of us millennials to learn how to use Tik Tok in order to share it. So all that is to say, many of us pursue career goals, we work jobs, we focus our energies around supporting family and loved ones. But Scott is one of those rare people who orients himself around seeing gaps and seeing the needs, seeing the way that society could be but isn't yet, and devotes himself to building and filling those gaps. I know that a lot of that comes from a place of Scott experiencing his own lived experience of struggles, but I know that this isn't a selfish pursuit. Scott really is a builder and an engineer of the world that we all would benefit from living in. I was just talking to my therapist yesterday about um taking a moment to take a moment um which I so often actually need and never give myself. So, I'm just going to give myself that for a moment. I'll give it to you too if you'd like. Wow. Um I don't recognize this building and I don't recognize myself. Um but it is so nice to be recognized. Um I when I first heard that this um that I was receiving this award, I thought it was a scam. I thought it was somebody emailing me and be like, "Hey, you get an award. All you have to do is like send us some money." and you know and um obviously that's not was in the message but I got this message and I was like okay sure whatever. Um and then I got a message back saying like hey so like are you going to do this and I was like oh I thought this was not real. Um so it does feel unreal but it it is real as it turns out because I'm right here right now and I just ate some bacon. Um, I I feel like uh I if there's one consistent thing in what I've done, it's contradiction. Um, I am a shy, Freddy cat. I'm actually terrified of public speaking and I do it constantly. U, but it's because I'm afraid of it that I do it constantly. Um, I'm deeply confused about people. I don't understand anything or anyone. So, I've made it my life's work to continue learning and finding out as much as I can. Um, I never really felt like I belonged. And so I made a career about making other people feel like they belong and finding my way into communities that I could build so that we could build them together and make them be what we want them to be. I a big a big contradiction is that I have spent a lot of my life making artwork which is ultimately fiction about being true. And so all of these things together just feel like quite a moment of so real it can't be real. So true that it has to be. Um I want to thank my uh I did all my homework right before coming here. It's on Post-it notes. Um I want to thank Sarah Larson. Those words unbelievable. Sarah has been just as inspiring to me. Um I want to thank my family, Denise, Steven, Sharon, Peter. Um, I have friends who are more like family to me than I could even tell you. So, uh, Courtney, Amanda, Teddy, Lucy, Kenyon, and all the parents who raised us. I I get to live in the kind of community village that few people can even imagine and everybody deserves. So, thank you to that community, that village that raised me. Um, and thank you to the community of teachers and staff at Minnetonka. This is a place that frankly sometimes I'm embarrassed to say I come from and today I feel more pride another contradiction. Um and because we get to be who we want to be and so all of you here today are making it who we want it to be. Um thank you to the alumni association. Thank you to everybody. Um this has been unreal. Thanks for making it real. And with that turn the page. All right. Thank you.