A Star Without Pedigree, A Wonder Without Precedent

For the most part, people who have important positions on the mayor’s staff share a common pedigree. They combine excellent academic preparation with a sequence of ever more responsible administrative positions. You meet them, ask what they were doing before they joined us, and it all makes sense.

There are a few exceptions, however, and I’m on that short list of wildcards. It would take someone far more creative than I am to draw a logical line between a South Salt Lake liquor store and the mayor’s office.

I’m painfully aware of that fact, and I work hard to prevent eyebrows being raised and questions being asked.

However, as short as that list might be, I’m not the only person on it, and when a fellow wildcard proves to be a star it gives me infinite satisfaction.

A case in point is Celina Milner.

She’s a lovely Latina with great interpersonal skills and a quick mind. Be in her presence for a minute and it’s impossible not to want her friendship.

She is that charming.

Celina also belongs to a small cadre I call, “The Miller Musketeers.” We are three in number – me, Joel Freston and Celina. We all report to Justin Miller. We all are recent graduates of a political campaign. And we all have responsibility for some part of constituent relations.

That makes us unique, and it brings us all together.

As I suggested, Celina didn’t take the usual route to the Mayor’s office. About ten years ago she was a newly single mother of two. It was a status she hadn’t planned for, and she didn’t have a roadmap.  Yet, over the intervening decade she found a way to raise two great kids and become a successful sales executive in the hospitality industry.

If she had done nothing more, Celina, like millions of other single mothers, would have qualified for the Congressional Medal of Motherhood.  But somehow, starting with such a terrible deficit and then achieving the impossible, wasn’t all she had in mind.

Celina decided to invest back in her community all the free time and surplus energy that comes with single motherhood. (Feel free to laugh.) She volunteered for non-profit boards and put her hand in the air whenever a worthy cause asked for help. That avocation for community service reached its zenith when last year she ran for the state legislature and lost by only a few hundred votes.

Now, last week, she was sitting at my desk planning a new literacy outreach for Salt Lake County. It occurred to me that while my segue into county government may have been unconventional, hers was miraculous. I danced into Ben’s office with a surplus of conviction and enthusiasm, but like Ginger Rogers, Celina did it dancing backwards and in high heels.

How does that happen? Well, I learned that creativity and resourcefulness played a part.

We were talking about ways to bring reading into the life of poor Hispanic families who have pre-school children. Bookmobiles came to mind.  “Ben’s Book Club For Kids" was another idea. There was a suggestion for story hours to be held at community laundromats.

Then it occurred to me that I should ask Celina about her own experience. What had she done to help her pre-school children learn to love books? After all, the accomplished, confident and articulate woman sitting across from me wasn’t always that way. There must have been a time when Celina was poor, scared and making it up as she went along.

“So, what did you do?” I asked, “How’d you get your kids to like books.”

“We went to Costco,” she said matter-of-factly.

“How would a trip to Costco help with something like that?”

“Well, for us at least, Costco wasn’t just about shopping. It was the only family outing we could afford. We treated it like a carnival or a street fair. There were new things to see, people to watch, and all these wonderful samples of free food. Best of all, the price of admission was free – if you didn’t count the membership card.”

“That’s great, but what does any of this have to do with books?”

Celina looked at me as if I was hopelessly out of touch. “Do you belong to Costco?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And you know they sell books, right? They have these long tables stacked with books, including children’s books.”

“Yes, I know, and they’re a bargain. But they’re not free.”

“Who said we bought them?” she asked.

“But if you didn’t buy them, Celina, how could you read them?”

“Easy, we’d go through all the children’s books, every one of them, and find a few we thought promising. Then we’d find the furniture display – there’s always a furniture display with big overstuffed chairs and couches. We’d cuddle together on that couch as if in our very own 100,000 square foot home. I'd read out loud, and gradually, as the story rolled along, it was as if no one else was there.”
 
“Sounds magical,” I said.

“It was.”

“And an object lesson in getting the most out of your Costco membership.”

“That too,” she laughed.

So there you have it, a Latina who found a way to launch herself from a couch at Costco right into the mayor’s office. She’s a star without pedigree, and a wonder without precedent. Next to her story my own little tale about a liquor store seems almost routine and predictable.

Who knows, if I hang around Celina long enough perhaps my colleagues will one day look at me and think, “Yeah, a liquor store, that makes sense.”