"CLASS ACT"
Courtesy of the Coshocton Tribune

He stands apart from most conventional wisdom and is opposed to much of it. In a land clad in T-shirts, he affects a black tuxedo. In a population which labors to be cool he stomps and struts and shouts good news.

He's Harvey Alston and you really have to hear him because it's impossible to describe what he does.

In an age much given to gloom and bitter resignation, he preaches a gospel of joy and good fortune. In a time which values very little he believes in solitary achievement, shared accomplishment and the dignity of human beings. At a traditional high school graduation ceremony or a routine assembly, he enters running, taking stage and the spotlight with the energy of a man who has something very important to get off his mind.

He trades in buzzwords and acronyms, but dismisses stereotypes and sells no ideology. He is in a word unique. Alston started life as a teacher, and liked that line of work.

But he never paused long enough to settle into a rut. …When a former student introduced him [Alston] to Dave Thomas, CEO of Wendy's, Alston suddenly found himself lubricating that firm's personnel machinery, training, and stimulating hamburger merchants. That was the beginning…

Now he moves business executives and struggling students, and urges young people to forever avoid drugs. But he is not a professional feel-good or a self-help mullah. He's a man who understands human nature and the limitations of the age in which he lives, but loves life anyway.

Alston has established reputation enough and momentum enough, to enable him to appear 10 minutes before show time, deliver his talk, and disappear. But he doesn't work that way. He arrives long before he is due, generally getting into the building as soon as it's opened. Then he talks to anyone who will listen, and listens to anyone who will talk. That means the janitors setting up the folding chairs, the secretaries gathered around the coffee machine, the teachers doing lunchroom duty and anyone. Even the kids to whom he will deliver his address, or the executives.

He comes to know his audience, who they are, what they want, what has ticked them off at the moment, and so on. And when show time arrives, he blends the charm of a game show host with the histrionics of a classical actor; he mixes the style of a tent show evangelist with that of a football coach; the light touch of a poet with the unblushing determination of an automobile salesman. He performs; He whispers; He roars, he exclaims. He drops to a crouch and paces about while reciting poetry. He whispers and he shouts.

He is at all times engaged. And the audience doesn't desert him for a second. ... He does not have an original miracle formula that makes life easy. He merely has the courage it takes to remind people that life is only what you make it, that self-respect does not come with the great job, but is brought to the job by people who do the best they can do, with whatever work is available to them. That's why he calls his enterprise Best Inc. It's also why people respond to him the way they do. He tells them to forget the odds, to believe what they know in the pit of their guts to be true. He believes it. He believes in himself. And he believes in the people to whom he speaks. His interest in them is genuine. That's the source of his credibility.

That's why you walk away from a conversation with him feeling good about yourself and everybody else. That's why the feeling lingers.

Story by George Wuerthele