Jeremy Slater

As a teenager I worked at Lagoon, which many of you know is an amusement park near Ogden, Utah. My job title was games employee, in the summer of 1995 I was working at the game where the player has to hit the lever with a mallet and make the weight at the other end go to the top and ring the bell. One evening a lady approached my game and said that she could win this game no problem, so I her coaxed her into paying the dollar and give it a try. The lady stepped up to the plate and whacked the living day lights out of the lever, I could have sworn the weight wasn't going to stop at the bell, but instead just shoot right through the top. The absolute amount of strength this lady had was, oddly enough, not what caught my attention. What did catch my attention is, when she hit the lever she let out a yell that would have made the Terminator run for his Mommy. Needless to say she won the game and started to walk off with her prize. Before she left I asked her, "What the hell was that?" She told me that it was a ki hahp. I asked her where she got it. Her response was Red Dragon Karate, the lady who gave me my first lesson in the Martial Arts, was 3rd degree Red Dragon black belt, Marleigh (Smith) Coleman. So my journey began, I was attending Red Dragon Karate within a week, and since the day I stepped into the Dojo and met Professor Bennett, my life has never been the same. Though the name of Professor Bennett's school has changed from Red Dragon to White Dragon, his pure love for the Martial Arts has not.

I trained with Master Bennett until the summer of 1997 then left the state of Utah in the pursuit of higher education. I now hold a double Associates of Arts degree in Marine Diving Technology, and Liberal Arts, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Management. While time spent at college is always worth the sacrifice, there is not a day that passes where I do not miss the family-like bond I made with all of my Teachers and Students of the Martial Arts.

Professor Bennett's passion for knowledge and people has instilled in me a love that is like no other in my heart. His trust, time, and commitment to my education of the Martial Arts changed my life in a way only fellow students can understand. Sensei, the positive change that you created for me is one of the infinite reasons why I will be eternally loyal to you.