The committee’s responsibilities include raising visibility for the American Red Cross as a local organization, establishing CEO Karen Hagan in the community and strengthening community partnerships.

“Serving the community is woven into the culture at Curley & Pynn,” said Ward. “I look forward to continuing the important work of such an established organization and seek to grow the presence of the American Red Cross in Central Florida.”

As a committee chair, one of Ward’s responsibilities is raising awareness of the American Red Cross’ involvement in the local community. Last year, the American Red Cross assisted more than 1,000 Central Florida families. The organization also responds to every house and apartment fire in Florida and across the nation, providing food, clothing, shelter and emergency services for those coping with the tragedy.

Aside from his American Red Cross duties, Ward remains actively involved with his alma mater, the ����ֱ��, serving on the board of directors for the Alumni Association, the board of visitors for the Nicholson School of Communication, and the editorial board of Pegasus magazine. He also served as the president of the Orlando Regional Chapter for the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) in 2004.

The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies more than 40 percent of the nation’s blood; teaches skills that save lives; provides international humanitarian aid; and, supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a not-for-profit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit redcross.org.

Founded in 1984, Curley & Pynn provides counsel and advice and total program management to Florida professionals and corporate clients who recognize that in today’s business environment it is essential to communicate with all who have an interest in their success.

To those closest to him, like teammate Todd “The Professor” Rogers, he is quite the opposite. Laid back. Rarely serious. And kind of dorky.

Guess he’s not so eminent when he’s standing on your side of the net.

It’s the perfect partnership — offensive juggernaut and skillful teacher —that catapulted the dynamic pair to Olympic victory this summer in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In case you weren’t part of the wild, 12,000-person crowd (think Brazilians in green and yellow wigs mixed with American flags and a guy sporting an Evel Knievel jumpsuit) or the 4 million fans cheering from their couches, here’s a quick replay.

It’s a sticky, sunny morning at Chaoyang Park. More than 10,000 tons of silky gold and white sand surround Dalhausser’s monster-size feet.

The battle begins.

Pitted against Brazilians Marcio Araujo and Fabio “Jaws” Magalhaes the Olympic rookies win the first set 23-21. The second set goes to the Brazilians at 17-21. A nail-bitter, indeed. The sportscasters keep the mood light, however, with their nonchalant banter: “…unfortunately, the Thin Beast isn’t getting many serves…” “…Jaws is just getting harpooned by the Thin Beast…” “…what do we think the Professor just said to Jaws up at the net?” And possibly the best comment of the game: “Jaws is upset.”

As he should be. In the final set Jaws is shut down repeatedly by Dalhausser’s power blocks. By point 14 — game point — the sun is beating down, and Dalhausser is hotter than a twice-baked potato. Rogers serves the ball. The Brazilians return it. Dalhausser leaps near the net, pounds the sweat-drenched ball hitting Jaws on the way down. It’s over. The Brazilians are left with clenched fists and utter indignation.

Long-limbed Dalhausser barrels toward Rogers. The perfectly golden tanned duo crashes to the ground in an enthusiastic man-hug as Dalhausser lets loose a beastly yell. The jarring cheers that rocked the stands, he will never forget. The years of painstaking work have paid off.

Time to relax. Time to soak it in. Time to chow down a giant hamburger.

Or not.

Whisked away, Dalhausser and Rogers star in a smattering of interviews before they don their patriotic podium gear, flash their pearlies and show off the six grams of gold they worked so hard for.

Shuffled into a special room, the two are immediately yanked from cloud nine. Momentarily. They are drug tested. Scrutinized by anti-doping agents. All clear.

Whirlwind of Attention

Soon after, they are back at their hotel for a quick bite to eat before cameos on the Today Show and MTV News. Suddenly in the spotlight and hearing reporters dub him the world’s best player, you’d think Dalhausser would have an ego of epic proportions. Not the case.

“I just kind of chuckle,” he says. “I’m not really one to pat myself on the back. It’s pretty cool I guess. It’s always nice to get respect from your colleagues.”

As the guy with the killer 55 mph serve explains the biggest day of his life he is true to his style — easygoing. That’s part of what makes him so appealing. No sports snobbery here. He’s still the regular, fun-loving Phil he was back on the UCF sand courts.

Just busier.

The day after winning gold, he zips back to his home in Santa Barbara for a few days to decompress before an AVP (Association of Volleyball Professionals) tournament in Cincinnati. For Dalhausser that’s plenty of time to master his favorite video game du jour, Call of Duty 4, and time for a Fantasy Football draft, which he plays while sporting his new golden luck charm.

Here’s the zinger though: after the draft, he tucks the medal away in his closet. “I don’t know what to do with it,” he says. “I’m supposed to take it with me to all the events, but I’m too scared I’ll lose it.”

After much debate, he takes the medal to the Oprah Show season premiere taping later that week and to a Santa Barbara elementary school. But, as he finishes up the stellar year with tournaments in Manhattan Beach, San Francisco, Dubai and China, the gold medal — the symbol that sums up his electrifying career thus far — will likely remain on the shelf, in the closet, among other international trophies and medals, including the 2007 AVP’s Most Valuable Player award and the 2007 FIVB (Federation of International Volleyball) World Championships award.

The Pre-Beast Years

Just five years ago, those impressive titles were merely a pipe dream. Dalhausser was playing club volleyball at UCF on the sand courts (next to where the now stands). “Volleyball was my hobby,” he says. In fact he didn’t start playing until his senior year at Mainland High School in Daytona Beach. Compared to his 34-year-old teammate Rogers, who began competing at 14, it was a late start.

He was hooked and by 2002, fresh out of college with a UCF business administration degree, he was staging his next move. Would this volleyball thing pan out? His parents weren’t convinced. As luck would have it though a recently befriended pal — a pro player from Myrtle Beach, S.C. — asked him to live and train there for the summer. “I didn’t really have much going on,” he admits. “I was working on construction in Daytona and I was like sure I’ll move up there.”

For the next two years he learned the ropes. After that it was on to Santa Barbara, Calif., when he realized “I couldn’t get much better living in Myrtle,” he says. “You practice against the best players in the country in California so your game automatically becomes better.”

Dynamic Duo

The move proved prosperous. He was playing nearly every day, soaking up the vibrant California volleyball scene. And in a 2004 tournament, Dalhausser played against his future partner, Rogers. “He was super tall, obviously, and somewhat of an offensive juggernaut,” Rogers remembers. “My first impression of him was ‘gosh this guy’s kind of a dorky guy,’ but then as I saw him play I was like, ‘wow, he’s actually pretty talented.’ He can move well and do all those things he needs to do to be successful in this sport.”

From there the two trained against each other often. Rogers saw on a daily basis the rookie mistakes Dalhausser made and, more importantly, the tremendous potential of this sleeping giant. “I said, ‘Hey I think you can be the best player in the world,’” says Rogers. “Are you interested in playing with me?” In his typical laid-back style, Dalhausser said “yeah, you know, I don’t have a lot of other things on my plate.”

As simple as that, the partnership began. And so did the grueling weight lifting regimen and beach workouts that included Dalhausser’s most-dreaded exercise — the drag pull where he dragged two sets of 25-pound weights about 40 yards down the soft sand and back.

It didn’t end there. Four-hundred yard sprints. Hitting the ball three times a week for two-hour increments. Six hours a week in the weight room and cardio routines on the off days. Two-hour plyometrics workouts (intended to increase reactive strength and jumping skill) so tough they occasionally made Dalhausser toss his cookies.

“I told him, ‘if I’m going to play with you, you have to commit yourself,’” says Rogers.

Done deal. Dalhausser was game and the scales were tipping in the direction of flat-out good times. After he and Rogers won the 2007 FIVB World Championships, he knew they had a shot at Beijing gold. “He’s just absorbed everything I’ve had to give him,” says Rogers.

Typical Day

Now in the off-season, the training load has lightened up. Dalhausser starts each morning by slathering on some Banana Boat sunscreen, throwing on his Speedo trunks and noshing on a light breakfast — usually a banana and cereal. When asked to compare his eating habits with Michael Phelps, he says, “I guess I eat more than the average person, maybe around 4,000 calories. I heard the whole 12,000 calories thing from Michael Phelps. I kind of find that hard to believe because that’s actually about six times the average diet.”

Next, he treks about a half-hour over to the ����ֱ�� of California, Santa Barbara, to meet up with Rogers around 9 a.m. “We’re not even picking up the ball during practice,” says Rogers. “We’ve played so much in the past five months we force ourselves not to play. That way, when you get to the actual tournament you get fired up for it because you are really stoked.”

By noon he’s off to the gym for an hour or so in the weight room. Then maybe a burrito for lunch. From there, it’s smooth sailing. His day is virtually done. The afternoon is wide open for video gaming and TV watching. Not bad.

The cushy lifestyle won’t last for long. He’ll be training full-time again soon. London (where the 2012 Olympics will be held) is calling.

Sitting in front of a classroom of , 27-year-old Lalita Booth looks like any other junior — sporting unassuming khaki-colored cargo pants, worn leather sandals, an oversized sweatshirt and a long ponytail of wavy, auburn locks still drying from her morning shower. The brown-eyed, freckle-faced student blends in with the roomful of her peers in every way.

That is, until she opens her mouth.

“You’re looking at the face of a child abuse survivor, a perpetual runaway, a high school dropout,” she says as idle chitchat turns to complete silence.

“I was a teenage mother, a homeless parent and a former welfare recipient.”

As jaws drop, she paints a vivid picture of her tumultuous past. Her parents divorced when she was young, by 12 she was a runaway pro — asking for permission to go somewhere and then simply not returning for a few days or weeks — and when discontent and anger intensified she took a month-long trip through several states by hitching rides with truckers.

After her spontaneous, vagabond-style trip, she never returned to high school and rarely showed her face at home either. Instead, she became proficient in “couch surfing” at friends’ homes. When there was no couch to crash on, the teen would take nightly refuge behind the closest dumpster and rest in the park during the day. “When you are 15 and alone, you don’t want the police or anyone else to notice you,” she says intensely.

In hindsight, she justifies her unconventional ways. “It wasn’t some sort of well-thought-out decision to be a wild child,” she says. “It was the only way I knew to be. So I never really questioned it.”

Searching for Stability

To understand how it got to this point, where a 15-year-old was struggling to survive on the streets, you have to rewind to Booth’s early childhood. The whirlwind of instability rushed in when her parent’s Asheville, NC, home was foreclosed on, forcing her family to live a nomadic lifestyle, hopping from town to town as evictions were slapped on the door or jobs were lost. “I’ve lived in 80 different homes in my 27 years,” she says. “I bounced around like a ping-pong ball.”

For Booth, it was a time filled with physical torment, emotional distress and utter loneliness. “Occasionally,” she says, “I just couldn’t be inside my house.” Struggling to clearly explain the feeling, she mentions it likely stems from events of abuse in her past, so traumatic that she can’t recall them today. “It’s been a pervasive thing throughout my life,” she says. Sitting at home for her was akin to cabin fever. And running away was a desperate attempt to keep her emotions at bay.

Her ramshackle plan: stay in constant motion and develop a “social family” of peers who were just as broke as she was financially and emotionally. She felt safe and happy with the ragtag team that would meet often at Vincent’s Ear, a little coffee shop in downtown Asheville.

“It was wonderful,” she recalls. “You could get a cup of coffee for 75 cents, sit for four hours, and they wouldn’t kick you out.” Other times the group would play chess or backgammon on concrete picnic tables at a nearby rundown courtyard or they’d hike the Blue Ridge Parkway and go berry picking or fishing. “If you exercise ingenuity,” she says, “it’s pretty easy to find things that don’t cost much that are entertaining.”

On Her Own

While the majority of her early years were haphazard, one notion always remained constant — Booth was rushing to become an adult. Maybe it was lessons from her older sister, who shared the same rebellious streak. Or maybe it was her defiant attitude. Nonetheless, at 16 she made a very grownup decision. As yelling matches with her parents worsened, her bond with peers grew stronger; so she played the ultimate teenage trump card — emancipation, or legal separation from her parents. “I was already living on my own,” she explains, “but I couldn’t sign a lease, couldn’t start building credit. So I hired an attorney, and my parents were served with a subpoena.”

Booth was free from parental confines, but before things could get better for the incorrigible teen, they got much worse. What should have been her wonder years were instead her welfare years.

Furthering her quest to be a grownup, at 17 she married her long-time buddy and fellow high-school-dropout, Quinn. “He made me feel very safe,” she says. “After having felt so alone, it meant a lot to me to have someone who would stand by me.”

Three months later, she found out she was pregnant with her son, Kieren. What normally would be a joyful time was instead a stressful one while the new couple struggled in a prison of deep poverty. Living in a tiny relic of an apartment in Asheville, Quinn brought home $800 a month while Booth stayed home to care for their gregarious, rambunctious, hungry infant. Rent gobbled up more than half their income and left little cash to feed and clothe the young family.

“Poverty is like a bubble that closes the realm of possibility around you,” she explains. “And there is simply no way out.”

Fortunately, the young couple qualified for a supplemental nutrition program which provided a stockpile of food each month. This meant four gallons of milk, three pounds of black beans and rice, several giant blocks of cheese, 10 pounds of potatoes — yet it all had to last 30 days. “Three meals a day was not something we could afford,” she explains. “We usually only had breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays.”

The miserable situation began to take its toll, and after just two and a half years of marriage, Quinn was ready to call it quits. However, they certainly couldn’t afford to file for divorce. Quinn instead enlisted in the military, left the country and withdrew financial support.

Flood Gates Open

Booth’s trickle of problems was now a full-fledged flood. Confronted with the realization that she was a stay-at-home mom with no professional skills, she knew that keeping her head above water would be a struggle. And while she attempted to find work, another major problem had crept into the picture – she was homeless.

“Things were fundamentally not working where I was,” she says. “The only thing you really can do if you don’t know what other variables to change is just to change everything. Try to eliminate every variable that could possibly be posing a problem.”

The escape artist in her prevailed again. With her new boyfriend, Carl, and her most precious cargo, Kieren, in tow, Booth fled to Boulder, CO, one of the few places from her childhood — with its mix of dreadlocked college folk, eclectic coffee shops, a greenbelt of trails and open spaces and the ever-present Rocky Mountain backdrop — that brought back happy memories.

But it was a city that didn’t come cheap. Bad credit made it nearly impossible to rent an apartment, and Booth, without a car, couldn’t find a job nearby. To make matters worse, childcare was four times more expensive in Boulder than in Asheville.

And so, she made a decision no parent should have to make: She gave her son away. Kieren was shuffled over to his paternal grandparents’ house for seven months while Lalita and Carl attempted to get back on their feet. “I slept with his T-shirt every night,” she said. “I just couldn’t give up on being somebody who would make him proud.”

Time away from her 2-year-old was devastating, however, being in Colorado proved to be fruitful for the 21-year-old, starting with an interesting job opportunity as an enrolled agent, an expert in U.S. taxation who can represent taxpayers before the Internal Revenue Service. She could acquire the license without further schooling. Better yet, it would boost her income to $32,000. She buckled down and read all 4,000 pages of the study guide and, thanks to her near-photographic memory, she aced the test. Another key to climbing out of poverty: She set up a complimentary session with a financial planner, mapping out exactly how to make ends meet.

Finally, her life was stable; she was feeling all the early signs of contentment. But, once again, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Carl’s brother in Orlando was very ill, and he needed to move to Florida. “It was a very difficult choice,” she says. “But I wanted to keep our family together. I cried all the way out of the state of Colorado. In giving that up, I thought, I better make something exceptional of the life I create.”

The Turning Point

The young family settled into an apartment in Sanford, and Booth began the job search, hoping to be an enrolled agent again, but reluctantly taking a minimum-wage job at Winn-Dixie when that didn’t pan out. Then came the ugly realization that if Carl left her, she would be right back where she started when Quinn retreated. “I would be sleeping in my car and surfing from couch to couch again,” she says.

The only way to ensure her independence was to do something that frightened her to the very core — go back to school. At 23, Booth had taken a hiatus from academia for seven years. The gaping holes in her education — she missed fifth grade altogether and dropped out of high school at 16 — were not something she could escape.

But Kieren, then 4 years old, served as her constant inspiration. “The old adage that your child will do as you do, not as you say, is very true,” she says. “If this were him in this situation, what would I want him to do?”

She knew the answer. And soon after, she enrolled at Seminole Community College. Finally, she was in the right place at the right time. “It was opportunity,” she says. “It was the chance to be something different.” She giggles when she says most people probably thought she was incredibly bizarre; she was so thrilled to be reuniting with academia, she would sit in the library and smell the books.

And she thrived. Where high school classes never met her craving for intellectual stimuli, college classes embraced her like an old acquaintance. College was her new haven, cozy and controlled.

In May 2005, Booth was selected to attend the Salzburg Global Seminar, where she brainstormed ways to solve global problems with a group of international students. That trip to Austria proved to be a life-changing one. “We were coming from Munich, taking the train,” she remembers wistfully. “It was surreal. For so many years it was, ‘How am I going to scrounge up enough for Ramen noodles?’ It was such a far cry from that desperate poverty.”

The thought-provoking trip led her to her mission: help others escape the chokehold of poverty. Although she didn’t know how or when, Booth knew she would dedicate her life to this quest. “That drive to make a difference,” she says, “has been what I’ve eaten, slept and breathed for the past three years.”

Back in the states, Booth’s world became even more dream-like when she won the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Scholarship, one of the largest and most competitive scholarships available to undergraduates in America, which whisked away $30,000 worth of bills, books and tuition each year. Now, she could focus purely on studies, devoting her time to the Phi Theta Kappa international scholastic honors society, Brain Bowl, the debate team and literary writing.

Things were looking up. In the meantime, ideas were percolating for her “life mission.”

Daring to Dream

These days, Booth’s growing academic momentum sees no bounds. With 135 credit hours to her name and a 4.0 GPA to boot, she couldn’t be more pleased. As a junior at UCF — double majoring in finance and accounting — she’s continuing to make up for lost time.

So far so good. In March, she became the only UCF student ever to capture the elusive Harry S. Truman Scholarship, one of the nation’s most prestigious public policy awards, which provide recipients $30,000 toward graduate studies. Not surprisingly, she also is a member of the , the highest honor that the university bestows upon students.

To top it off, she founded Lighthouse for Dreams, a financial literacy program aimed at educating and empowering high school students. “I have lived the reality that I’m trying to change for so many people,” she says. “Because I’ve been in those situations, I have a window of insight into what causes the problem and how to go about fixing it.”

Beyond her high school outreach program, Booth has interned with state and U.S. lawmakers to improve Florida’s financial literacy laws and reform welfare’s work restrictions — two major policy concerns she knows about first hand. She teaches financial literacy to Junior Achievement students, and her thesis is being reviewed by President Bush’s Literacy Task Force and will likely be published in the near future.

“If you’re looking for someone who will change the world for the better,” says , UCF associate professor of finance, “I believe that you have found her.”

Meanwhile, it seems as if her childhood pipe dream of attending Harvard Law School may come true. By the looks of her apartment, it is quite apparent she’s doing more than crossing her fingers. The white walls in her family room, the ceiling light above the kitchen counter and the closet are all punctuated with dozens of yellow Post-it Notes, each indicating a new fact she wants to commit to memory. A How to Get into Harvard book sits on the toilet tank, and GRE study guides line the top of the fish aquarium. “I’m never more than 20 feet away from a book,” she says. “I try to keep reading material everywhere.”

Booth strongly believes, and for good reason, “things that are worth achieving are absolutely unreasonable,” she says. “Set unreasonable goals and chase them unreasonably.”

A Rich Life

Although she’s rebounded from poverty, she says she’s still prone to buying 10-pound bags of potatoes, hand-stitching her own brightly-colored pillows or shucking pomegranates to make her own wine. The main difference in her life now: Every choice she makes is a calculated one. She spends 20-plus hours a week studying for the , so she can score at least 171 out of 180. Soon after, she’ll tackle the GRE in hopes of also being accepted into the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard ����ֱ��. Equally as important, she passes on her intellect on to her shaggy haired 8-year-old, who is the lead singer in a neighborhood band and anxious to attend SCC, UCF and Harvard to study electrical engineering.

As she flips through a photo album, packed with snapshots of her young pregnancy, her low-key Asheville apartment and her lifelong friends, Booth says she wouldn’t change anything in her past. “It could potentially alter who I am today,” she says emphatically.

And at this point, there is nothing left to escape. She is exactly where she wants to be.