Ignite Fort Collins 4: A tribute to Jenna

About a month ago I signed up to speak at Ignite Fort Collins 4. Happily, a bunch of you voted for my topic “How not to drive like a douche in the mountains” and I was invite to speak up there. So Jim and I cruised up to Fort Fun to check it out. It was a pretty amazing night of 5 minute presentations (overall thoughts coming in another entry soon).

The presentation went well, and I was really impressed with their organization level. A second screen showing my slides on the wall i was looking at really helped me know what slide was showing without my having to look down at a podium or back at the screen behind me. I got through everything well and gave everyone some good tips about getting around in the mountains. They can be a dangerous place and I wanted to educate people with my observations after having spent a lot of time in the mountains.

This was a really difficult subject for me to talk about because my Shwayder Camp friend Jenna Gruben was killed in a car crash outside Steamboat Springs, Colorado after I was already selected to talk there. I considered dropping out because I was planning on being much more snarky about this topic. With this sad news about Jenna (or Jenna Talia, as she used to joke), I wasn’t sure it was appropriate. I decided to change my presentation to be a more serious one, and I tried to include more serious topics.

I’m not going to lie and say that I really kept up with Jenna since our youth group/camp shared experience, but I always remembered her as an incredibly funny and painfully (and hilariously) honest, enhthusiastic, and otherwise incredible and genuine person. My time at Shwayder Camp was one of those experiences in my life that I will always remember as probably the happiest times of my life, and Jenna was always a part of that. I’m lucky to have known her, and it bums me out seriously to hear of her untimely passing. Especially when I had been driving in the mountains the same day in some pretty treacherous weather.

I saw what Jenna was up to periodically through Facebook, and it was always some unfathomable thing, like how she ran in a bunch of ultra-mega-uber-distance running races.

There’s a Facebook group in Jenna’s memory. In a few short days after the accident, her group had over 1,000 members – showing just a small sampling of everyone she had positively affected in her life. I love reading about all the other impactful influences she had on other people, too – she was making a difference in this world by being the same amazing woman I knew back up on the side of Mount Evans, up at Shwayder.

It reminded me about the communities I’ve belonged to in the past. Shwayder Camp is a family, and this news brought me back to that community. I have always cared for this community with all my heart, and this is one of a few times we’ve lost someone integral to those early experiences I had. I feel sorrow for this loss, but at the same time I am happy to remember experiences we shared growing up.

So my tribute to Jenna is trying to educate drivers about safe mountain driving. I don’t lay blame on anyone for this, but I hope that what I’ve told people last night (which will be on youtube soon, the slides are posted below) can help make these mountains which we embrace maybe just a little safer for everyone.

It’s maybe not a traditional memorial, but this is how I thought I should do my part to remember her.