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Henry County Township Officials were reminded of the importance of the U.S. Constitution at their fall dinner meeting held Tuesday night, Nov. 15, at PL Damron's Cafe, in Kewanee.
Guest speaker was Chad Kent, an award-winning professional writer and speaker who travels throughout the country renewing interest in and helping people understand the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
Kent, a native of Orion, is the son of Roger Kent, one of the first general managers of the Kewanee cablevision system in the early 1970s. The senior Kent, now retired, still lives in Orion and was in attendance at Tuesday night's meeting.
Kent's work has appear in a variety of publications, including Patriots of the American Revolution Magazine, the American Thinker, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Kent explained that throughout his childhood he had a natural passion for American history and the Constitution and spent countless hours reading everything he could find. "I found myself sitting on the couch watching the news on TV until one day I decided to do something about what is going on in America," Kent told the township audience.
After graduating from Augustana College in 2001, Kent bounced from one mediocre job to the next before finally deciding to combine his love for the Constitution with his God-given talent for speaking. Over the past three years, he has been using that passion for freedom to inspire and educate audiences all over the country.
Using his simple stories — along with the unique style he used to win the 2008 Toastmasters District 54 Humorous Speech Contest — Kent explains the U.S. Constitution and the concept of individual rights in ways that are both entertaining and understandable.
"Freedom can go in an instant," Kent said. "It is important that we all do our part."
He said Americans need to know not only what the Constitution is, but why it was written and base decisions on its sound principles.
"We need simple laws," Kent said. "We want laws to be straight-forward and simple to everyone can understand them." He illustrated the point with the example of the official's holding call in football. "There's no question what holding is. When everyone sees it, they know what it is. Laws have to be that simple," Kent said.
He said when we elect lawmakers on the state and national level, we should make sure their interests and the same as our interests. "They need to go through what we're going through to the greatest extent possible," Kent said.
Henry County Township Officials were reminded of the importance of the U.S. Constitution at their fall dinner meeting held Tuesday night, Nov. 15, at PL Damron's Cafe, in Kewanee.
Guest speaker was Chad Kent, an award-winning professional writer and speaker who travels throughout the country renewing interest in and helping people understand the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
Kent, a native of Orion, is the son of Roger Kent, one of the first general managers of the Kewanee cablevision system in the early 1970s. The senior Kent, now retired, still lives in Orion and was in attendance at Tuesday night's meeting.
Kent's work has appear in a variety of publications, including Patriots of the American Revolution Magazine, the American Thinker, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Kent explained that throughout his childhood he had a natural passion for American history and the Constitution and spent countless hours reading everything he could find. "I found myself sitting on the couch watching the news on TV until one day I decided to do something about what is going on in America," Kent told the township audience.
After graduating from Augustana College in 2001, Kent bounced from one mediocre job to the next before finally deciding to combine his love for the Constitution with his God-given talent for speaking. Over the past three years, he has been using that passion for freedom to inspire and educate audiences all over the country.
Using his simple stories — along with the unique style he used to win the 2008 Toastmasters District 54 Humorous Speech Contest — Kent explains the U.S. Constitution and the concept of individual rights in ways that are both entertaining and understandable.
"Freedom can go in an instant," Kent said. "It is important that we all do our part."
He said Americans need to know not only what the Constitution is, but why it was written and base decisions on its sound principles.
"We need simple laws," Kent said. "We want laws to be straight-forward and simple to everyone can understand them." He illustrated the point with the example of the official's holding call in football. "There's no question what holding is. When everyone sees it, they know what it is. Laws have to be that simple," Kent said.
He said when we elect lawmakers on the state and national level, we should make sure their interests and the same as our interests. "They need to go through what we're going through to the greatest extent possible," Kent said.
Kent also said we have to limit corruption in government because "freedom and corruption don't mix." He said the money funding lobbyists leads to power and power leads to corruption.
He said the rules of law are important because "If we can't understand what's going on in Springfield or Washington, how can we survive?"
He encouraged the audience to get involved and study the Constitution. "It could not be more critical than now," he said.
One of the things that got him off the couch and inspired him to act, he said, was a quote from Ronald Reagan —"Freedom is never more than one generation from extinction," and said "it's each generation's responsibility to pass it on to the next."
He said he decided that if America ever lost its freedom he wanted to be able to tell his children and grandchildren he did everything he could to keep it alive.
Kent and his wife, Sarah, live in Rockford where he is also a stay-at-home dad for their twin sons.
