Something Great is Happening on Facebook

So said a friend of mine last week. And I have to agree - something really great is happening on Facebook.

It started with a simple Facebook group, set up by an employee at the National 4-H Center, to connect individuals who worked with the Citizenship Washington Focus (CWF) program.

Several alumni were invited to join - they invited others they were connected to - and so on. Before I knew it, I was reconnecting with people that I hadn't seen, or spoken with, in 20 years.

In the summer of 1992 - an election year (when Bill Clinton ended 12 years of Republicans in the White House), an Olympic year (when both summer and winter Olympics still happened in the same year), and the summer I turned 21 - I found myself in Washington, DC.

It was the first summer I'd ever lived away from home. It turns out that I never lived at home during the summer again. Strange how experiences can be a turning point.

I went to work for the CWF program because I believed that I could. Sure, there was a tough application process, including tape-recorded "introductory" presentations and such. But I wanted to work in DC. I wanted to work for the National 4-H Council. And I wanted to work for the CWF program, something that I had loved attending as a teenager.

So I applied, I was selected and off I headed to DC. I lived in Warren Hall with 13 other PAs (Program Assistants).

We herded cats 4-Hers all summer. Week after week, busloads of eager teenagers would arrive in DC. Our role as PAs was to entertain them, educate them and show them the wonders of DC.

I learned more random trivia (and can still give a pretty knock-out tour) of DC than you'd think imaginable. I met countless representatives and senators. I met a former astronaut and the original Dream Team.

Those 13 PAs - housemates and colleagues - and I became great friends.

However, time marches on. We all moved back to university and on with our lives. I finished graduate school, moved to Kenya, then to Texas, then to England and back to Texas. Some relationships endured, thanks to old-fashioned letter writing that jumped to this new-fangled thing called Facebook.

But then an employee at the National 4-H Center set up the CWF PA Alumni group page and magic started to happen.

Friends connected with friends. We looked at photos. We couldn't believe it had been 20 years.

And we all still remember significant amounts of our tour scripts.

I think this is what Facebook is really all about: Connecting people.

I just have to say - that's something really great.