By Giordano An Award of Excellence for Jake Stephenson

If I was to give an award to someone I would give the award to Jake Stephenson. He is a very courageous man. He also has tons of patience, is very happy-go-lucky, loves kids, very smart, and works in spite of pain. Not to mention he is very funny.

Jake went to basic training for the US Air Force, not to be a pilot, but to be a SEREs (search evasion rescue escape) specialist. In his class he was actually breaking records. In fact, in the allotted time for making a spoon, he made a knife, fork, and spoon plus helped the other recruits make their spoons.

Jake loves to train pilots for survival if the planes go down which takes lots of patience. Most of the pilots that he trains either dont know or dont want to know the training because they say they are going to go down with the plane. Some of the training involves building lean-tos and starting fires. With that information Jake came to Montana to teach some of the Eureka SDA Churchs kids. Some of his very own words were, Most of the time it takes 3 days to teach my men what you guys learnt in 3 hours!

He told us a couple of stories about his training of pilots. Sometimes he would take regular rocks and coat them with fire starter paste. Then hed turn around and say to his trainees, Here is a special kind of rock. Its called a fire rock. Hed take his lighter out, light the rock, and the fire starter paste would burn making it look like the rock was on fire. When they get back from the hike, the men have their backpacks stuffed with rocks and they ask Jake, Is this a fire rock, Is this a fire rock? How about this one? and so on.

Jake was a very fit man until he got rheumatoid arthritis. Before he was in the military, he used to pack fencing up a mountain. Sometimes hed fill a backpack with rocks and run 3 miles. In fact he was so fit, his commanding officers tried to see how many pushups Jake could do and he did over 200 pushups! Even though the arthritis started before he went to Afghanistan and no one realized it, Jake performed his duties. While in Afghanistan, he and one other SEREs specialist had a special ops mission.

This man is a perfect role model for todays society. We need to be like him. To work through pain, to be strong and courageous, to love others, have a good sense of humor, and be determined to do your best. Jake means a lot to me and those who know him well. They would agree with me that he deserves this award of excellence.

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