The nominating speech came from Flynn’s dear friend EV Mann, the founder and director of the Center for Creative Education, as well as a composer and musician. “This is such an honor for me, because I’m a huge Rik Flynn fan,” he said. Then Mann recalled the story of the famed Argentine writer Jorge Luís Borges, when he was asked to give a speech for a prominent group of Shakespeare scholars. “He was a huge Shakespeare fan, and was thrilled with the invitation; but he was up there in years, and was almost blind at that point,” said Mann. “When they walked him up to the microphone, he couldn’t see it, and ended up giving his speech a few feet from the mic, so that all anyone could hear was what sounded like mumbling, and then a loud ‘Shakespeare!’ more mumbling and then ‘Shakespeare!’ But one scholar said it was the best speech he’d ever heard, because it was just pure emotion. I thought of doing the same thing and just yelling ‘Flynn!’ every few minutes…”
What Mann did instead was to delve a bit into Flynn’s past by calling some of his old teachers from Catholic school to gain some insight into him as a child before Mann knew him. He ended up contacting Sister Marie O’Donnell, who had been Mann’s fifth-grade teacher. “Of course I remember Rik Flynn!” the sister said. “He asked to skip recess one day to do extra scripture study, and I was ready to smack him for insolence until I realized he was serious. That has never happened before nor after Rik Flynn.”
He heard a similar tale from Flynn’s high school principal, Father Frank McCaughey. The father told him that he remembered Flynn distinctly, because he went to find him for skipping out on class and discovered that he was volunteering at a local soup kitchen every day. “I couldn’t come down hard on him, because he was doing what we were preaching!”
Mann said that in his 16-year relationship with Flynn, he has learned just to “say yes when Rik asks me to do something. Why? 1) Because it’s never about Rik. 2) Whatever you’ll be doing it will help someone directly and profoundly. 3) If Rik asks you to do something or work on a project, it has an almost-guaranteed chance of getting accomplished.”
Mann ended his speech by quoting a song-lyric from his favorite artist, Leonard Cohen:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
That’s how the light gets in
That’s how the light gets in
He thanked his friend for “clearing the sky,” and for “seeing the cracks in our broken world and shining the light on them,” said Mann. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
After being handed the award and a $250 donation from Mohonk Consultations, the normally smiling Flynn was visibly choked up. “I was doing pretty well with the attention — something I don’t normally like — until that,” he said, acknowledging his friend. The “Champion” of local volunteerism, in turn, went on to thank everyone at UlsterCorps for their work and vision and dedication and accepted the award on behalf of all of them.
To learn more about UlsterCorps, go to www.ulstercorps.org or call (845) 481-0331.
