ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
With each new year comes hope for new beginnings, and that is no different for 2025.
With that in mind, members of the Liberal community will be attending an event designed to bring them that renewed sense of hope later this month.
The event, presented by Seward County Broadcasting, will take place Tuesday, Jan. 21, at the Seward County Ag Building and will feature motivational speaker Kendall Gammon.
A Kansas native, Gammon attended Pittsburg State University, where was captain for the 1991 national champion Gorillas and was voted most inspirational by his teammates.
During a 15-year career in the National Football League, Gammon played with the Pittsburgh Steelers, New Orleans Saints and Kansas City Chiefs, playing in the 1995 Super Bowl and the 2005 Pro Bowl.
Today, in addition to his speaking engagements, he is recognized for his role as color analyst for the Chiefs Radio Network broadcast team where he broadcasts alongside the “Voice of the Chiefs” Mitch Holthus.
The topic of Gammon’s speech at the Jan. 21 event will be “The Power of Emotional Strength,” and coordinator Cheryl Collins said the evening promises to be a fun one.
“It’s a motivational speech addressing where you’re at in your personal life and how that affect all areas of your life,” she said. “Building leaders starts with emotional strength is one of his quotes.”
Collins said Seward County Broadcasting has been wanting to put on an event for the community and its businesses to benefit them as well as have a nice event.
“I had the opportunity to go to a couple of conferences this last year, and they had keynote speakers who were motivational speakers,” she said. “With both of them, I came back going ‘Wow, more people need to have the opportunity to hear this kind of stuff.’ What if we kicked off 2025 with an event like this in Liberal and gave businesses or individuals the opportunity to come, bring your employees, start your business off with a group bonding thing? They get to come together. They get to hear the speech. They get to have a really good meal.”
After attending those conferences, Collins said she talked to some local businesses to see if the event would be something they would enjoy bringing their staff and if they felt the community would get behind it.
“Overwhelmingly, it was a very positive idea, so we began putting it together,” she said. “It’s a catered ribeye dinner. It’ll be decorated nicely. It’s going to be a good event.”
Collins said Gammon spoke at one of the conferences she attended, and she found his speech both engaging and entertaining.
“He does a really good job of it,” she said.
Collins said she hopes those who attend the Jan. 21 event leave with a renewed sense for where they are personally, as well as a new sense of how to better engage with people. This includes, she said, engagement from a business side and not necessarily being a better employee, but rather a renewed attitude towards their life, which in turn makes them appreciate where they are and what they have.
“In the end, maybe we have a big room of people who start treating each other better, and that just flows into better relationships in the workplace between business and customers,” she said. “That would be the hope – that there would be some of that would come out of it.”
Collins said, though, the event has been sold out.
“It was open to the public, but we were really more targeted to specifically going to businesses and giving them the opportunity to invest in their employees and make a difference within their workplace,” she said. “We did it more as a personal invitation to the event, as opposed to a general open to the public invitation.”
Collins too hopes those who attend will have a better understanding of the business to consumer relationship. Those who attend will leave with inspirational materials as well.
“Everybody who attends will receive a 52-week pad of weekly motivation,” she said. “After the event, everyone has a gift bag they’ll take with them that will have continued inspiration for the rest of the year.”
