On October 30th, Jerry Schemmel visited Gunnison High School to share a motivational speech with GHS students and teachers. Jerry Schemmel is a plane crash survivor, play-by-play broadcaster for the Colorado Rockies, and was the former voice of the Denver Nuggets. He is also a motivational speaker. During the assembly Jerry talked about his experience in the crash of flight 232 and the three major themes he learned that he shared that all students should do in their lives.

His three pieces of advice include focusing on the journey. His second piece of advice was to do what you want to do because you want to do, it not because someone else wants you to. His last piece of advice was if there is something you want to do and you have always wanted to do, just do it.

He wrote his own book called Chosen to Live after being a survivor of the United Airlines Flight 232 in 1989. When the crash occurred he did not obtain any severe injuries but when he heard a baby’s cry he rushed back in to save the girl. During the assembly Jerry talked about how the plane crash affected his life and what has changed after the crash.  He told students about his survivors grief and how he coped with the event.

 Jerry took his own advice and set out to do the race across America on three different occasions. He said, “ I recruited a friend of mine and we did the two person race across America 2015. We averaged 4015 days and finished in 7 days.” The moral of this story was to encourage students to take chances and take on challenging tasks. 

Even though he felt scared and unsure about doing the race he knew he needed to do it . Jerry has had many different valuable life experiences that he shared at the school assembly teaching Gunnison High School students valuable lessons.