Where I Stand -- Mimosa Jones: JFK Jr. led a generation

Editor's note: In August Where I Stand is written by guest columnists. Today's guest, Mimosa Jones, is president of the private, nonprofit Las Vegas Entertainment Development Corp. The EDC's mission of promoting the entertainment industry includes recruiting filmmakers and their production companies to shoot movies on location in Nevada. The corporation helps in making the state user friendly for all entertainment mediums and their writers, directors and producers. Jones writes that while the world has tragically lost John F. Kennedy Jr., his style of leadership affected her generation in a way that will never die.

OVER THE PAST few weeks we have heard hours of commentary about John F. Kennedy Jr. On that fateful morning when the nation awoke to reports of his missing plane, many Americans, including myself, sat breathlessly awaiting some news, any news, and, of course, praying it would be good news.

I was especially saddened; my first Washington job had been with his uncle, Ted Kennedy, and I felt in some strange way that I had lost a friend, but more importantly, that my generation had lost a leader.

In the spirit of the hundreds of journalists who covered the death of JFK Jr., one would expect that I am speaking of his potential in political circles -- how he might have led New York in the Senate or the nation in the presidency. But here, oddly enough, I speak of his leadership in what was so affectionately known to many in the late 1980s as the "Slacker Generation."

Coming from mostly divorced, single-parent households, fresh from the ever-affluent decade of Reaganomics, our society had little hope or appreciation for our generation. We were not necessarily the Rhodes Scholar, wing-tipped, money-driven group our parents had hoped to create; nor were we the go-for-the-cause Greenpeacers the world seemed to wait for, and want, so desperately. We seemed direction-less, lost, uncaring, grunge-like; free-spirited, but not with any real cause to take on. In a nutshell, the media had painted a dismal picture for how we would lead, or rather not lead, our nation and the world.

But now, a decade later, lead we did. And we did it in our own way, with our own insight, our own creative will and inner desires to make the world smaller, communities larger and success greater. Hundreds of small businesses are started every day by people in their 20s, more than any other demographic. The largest group of new millionaires, mostly due to the brainchildren of Silicon Valley, belongs to this generation. Our ability to communicate about tragedy, crime, the environment, the world and our place in it, now is but a click or modem away. And because of mistakes made past, we wait longer to get married, invest more and, according to recent surveys, will make a commitment to having at least one parent at home raising subsequent generations.

Yes, JFK Jr. was a great American president's son. But he was also a great example of the entrepreneurial spirit, inner drive and passion for new ideas and directions, that has made this generation of leaders so uniquely qualified to define and exceed the world's expectations for the next century.

Whether it was creating a new venue for political discussion in George magazine, failing the New York bar exam or flirting with a career in acting, JFK Jr. showed America what I believe this generation has mastered: a profound ability to live our lives -- with our failures and successes, dreams and disappointments, loves and losses -- on our own terms along with an even more prevalent need to dedicate our lives to others.

Public service may have been the banner by which President Clinton waved his presidential flag, but it is undoubtedly the creed we seek to embrace. This generation of business leaders is, like other generations, looking to make a lot of money. But we are also looking, for the first time in history, with a very global vision of where we must go as world citizens.

I'm not certain I know many professionals my age who don't embrace the word "yes." But we certainly have disdain for the word "how." For so much of what we set out to do is birthed in the same strange way that our technological achievements have been: with energy, tenacity and no particular direction.

Being direction-less, naive, young ... these are things to celebrate. They do tend to fade with time and the fight seems just that much easier when you don't necessarily know what you're up against. For us, including JFK Jr., we were, and are, up against an inner-ambition, trying each day not to outdo what had been done before but to outdo ourselves.

I will mourn this man -- one of privilege, but one of our own -- for some time.

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