I read an excerpt from the book Abraham Lincoln and the Irish:  The Untold Story by Niall O’Dowd and it was very interesting.  It explained that in 1865 in Ireland, a German newsman named Paul Julius Reuter had set up a telegraph line in a little village called Crookhaven in County Cork, Ireland.  This coastline was close enough for a rowboat to go out to the news ship instead of waiting for that ship to dock further down the coast at Cobh.  This allowed Reuter to be the first one to get the news from America and put it out across his telegraph line to the rest of Europe.

Because of this, he was the first to break the news that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated, twelve days earlier, which was the length of time it took for the news to cross the ocean before telegraph lines connected the continents.  First people didn’t believe that the great leader was gone.  Then they respected Reuter as the ultimate source of news.

As a communications person myself, I have always known about the news agency Reuters, but I never realized it went back to this man, Reuter, who went out of his way to blaze a trail.

How can we blaze a trail?  What solution can we find for an issue in society and then how can we hustle to make it a reality?

As philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

You are a trailblazer.  We are waiting to see which way you will go.  And can’t wait to hear the news.