Transcript excerpt from the opening session of the Eagle Summit (live video). Sandy Wardenburg Waggett welcomes attendees, acknowledges first-time participants, invites a prayer by Amani, and introduces central figure Tom Hill—noting his age (89) and health conditions—while naming family and organizers present. The segment sets the conference’s tone of legacy, community, and mentorship.
Chapters
We are live from the Eagle Summit. Here we go. Good morning, everyone.
Good morning.
I am so thrilled to see so many old faces. Old, strong word, right?
Long time familiar faces. Thank you, Kate Wright for that. But also so many new faces. And if this is your first time to an Eagle summit, would you mind just holding your hands high in the air please? Look at this, you guys. This is how you, this is how you grow in organization and I am just thrilled you are going to have the experience of a lifetime. Before we get started, Amani, would you please come up and open with a prayer for us?
Good morning. Good morning. Lord God, I just thank you for this time to be able to come together, Lord, and, and network and just be able to just be with one another. We just pray a blessing over this conference. We thank you for all the hard work that went forward. We thank you for Sandy and her team and just everything that she's done. We thank you for Tom Hill in this vision. So Lord, we just pray, Lord, that we can continue to keep this legacy going and that we can continue to love on one another and be in the room, be present while we're together. And I pray, Lord, that every speaker that is here today, God, they will be able to speak to our hearts and give us something that we can not only learn from, but that we can apply to our lives and to our businesses. So we pray a blessing over the speakers for tomorrow as well. And we thank you and praise you for everything that's going to transpire on this weekend. We bless you in Jesus name. Amen.
Okay, so there were a lot of hands that went in the air as first timers to the summit. And you are probably thinking, who's this Tom Hill guy? So a lot of us know Tom Hill, but I'm going to do my best to introduce you to a man who is. He will be here later today. He's currently 89 years old. He just had a birthday and he, he's suffering from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and so he is just a gift though to this world. So I'm going to give you a little bit of background. There's many people in here also that know Tom Hill much more deeply than I do. I'm a newbie, relatively speaking to the guys like Alvin and of course Mickey, who's Tom's son in law. Michael Graham. Imani, you came in about the same time I did. Gary Baker, who. This is Gary's Facility, Undivided wealth and Undivided Experience Center. So do you stop and meet him.
Out there and Marie and Michelle. So Marie Cornell is Tom Hill's daughter, and Michelle is also Tom Hill's daughter. So Marie came in. She is actually in the hall of fame for tracking cross country as a coach.
And Michelle has. She has done this summit and they've catered at Tornadors for years, and they do an amazing job. So please give them a round of applause for them that you're going to enjoy this weekend. So for the first. And please correct me, you guys, I just took some notes so I could give the background. But. So for the first 26 years of Tom's adult life, he was in education. He was at Mizzou as an administrator and a professor. And he, at the age of 50, 50, left to pursue a career in real estate franchise sales. Is that correct? ReMax ultimately had the largest ReMax franchise in the south of Georgia. He had Kentucky, Tennessee, Southern Ohio, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. So in 10 years, the sales of those were in the3.3 billion range. And then he sold it and he started coaching. And this is what today. So he formed a group called the Hills Angels. So people who coached with Tom were affectionately called the Hills Angels. And I think Betty came up with that. Right. His wife, who has since passed Tom. I didn't really have prepared remarks. I just had an idea of how I was going to open this, and I couldn't think of a better way than with Tom's four mantras, because that's how he would open it if he was standing on this stage. So he. If you coach with Tom, he's got four mantras, and it's the first thing he will say to you. So the first one is, we have a moral obligation to become the best person that we can with the gifts that God has given us. The second one is we have a moral obligation to make a positive difference in the lives of every human come in contact with. The third is one idea well executed can change your life forever. And the fourth is one person who's attracted to you for the person you've become can change your life forever. And that is exactly what Tom Hill did for me. The people who know Tom know that his hallmark and his drive is to connect people who can help one another. And that is what this summit is all about. So we bring in people who we know can be synergistic and helpful and provide additional resources and support and camaraderie and relationships to.
