The summer months provide a wonderful opportunity for all to get some much needed rest! Summer is also a time to reflect, discover and prepare. For our students, faculty and employees it's a great time to enjoy family and friends. We also encourage each one of you (young people and adults alike) to read and learn. Find a good book and take time each day to read. You'll enjoy the quiet and you'll find a relaxing joy thick enough to hold!

Not long ago, I read about a fascinating man named "Buck" Fuller who requested the following epitaph be carved on his gravestone, "Call Me Trim Tab." Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was an American architect, author, inventor and futurist. Fuller published more than 30 books and coined several popular terms, including the word "synergy." Fuller often used "trim tabs" as a metaphor for how seemingly small, well-focused actions can produce significant, enduring outcomes.

A trim tab is a small lever on a boat or plane rudder that moves independent of the whole rudder. Modest movements of the trim tab can change the direction of a massively heavy boat or plane producing results far out of all proportion to the actual size of the trim tab. Fuller once said:, "Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary—the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there's a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab. It's like a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab adjusts the entire rudder. It takes almost no effort at all. I said that the little individual can be a trim tab. So I say call me trim tab."

In the Weber School District, we have hundreds of "trim tabs." People who work diligently to make a big difference! We have just completed a successful school year. That could never happen in such a large organization without the combined efforts of many dedicated individuals. I thank each one of you for your contribution—for being a "trim tab" that helps to successfully guide our school district as we strive to inspire, build and teach children. And, to our many students, parents and partners, we thank you for your great efforts. It's a marvelous thing to watch our entire community come together to provide for the education of our next generation.

Jeff Stephens
Superintendent