4th annual Be Bright Conference set for this weekend

Long hours of preparations are about to pay off for Jared Ritter and his team as the 4th annual Be Bright Conference is set to take place on Friday, August 4 and Saturday, August 5 at the Drury Plaza Hotel and Conference Center.

The conference will feature many local speakers along with keynote speaker Coach Ken Carter, the basis of the 2005 movie, “Coach Carter”.

“What’s truly special about this year is having someone like Coach Carter coming to our region to talk about his story,” Ritter said. “So many people were impacted through the movie, I can’t even imagine hearing it from his mouth.”

Because of Carter being the keynote speaker, Ritter said the decision was made to give student athletes free admission to the two-day conference.

“I feel a responsibility to not miss that opportunity to impact as many lives as we can,” Ritter said. “I don’t want money to be the thing that comes between lives getting changed. Our kids need to hear this.”

Ritter’s inspiration for creating the Be Bright Conference came from attending various events and presentations around the country.

“I know how inspired I feel when I go to events,” Ritter said. “I really wanted to bring that mentality and level of inspiration to our community. It can highlight a lot of special things that are happening right here.”

The conference’s website details that the event will be “loud, empowering and bright”.

“It personifies a lot of how I am,” Ritter said. “I like to be loud, I like to be bright and I like to be amped up. It had to be clear from day one that this wasn’t just a ‘rah-rah’, pump you up, it was actually equipping people with tools that they can walk away from the event and feel like it was worth it.”

While there wasn’t one specific moment that stuck out, Ritter said hearing people speak is something that has always been enjoyable for him and has helped shape his career path as he owns Ritter Real Estate.

“I’ve always enjoyed listening to people from a stage,” Ritter said. “It definitely had an impact on my life.”

On top of having Coach Carter as the keynote speaker, the conference will also feature a diverse lineup of speakers from the region.

“We want people from our community to speak that have created success in their own way,” Ritter said. “Diversity is important to us. Being able to hear from a speaker in the first 30 minutes that comes from a totally different walk of life than the speaker in the next 30 minutes is huge. You don’t get that a lot.”

As the start of the conference draws near, Ritter is able to reflect on the work he and his team have put in to make the event happen.

“I have a huge support staff behind me,” Ritter said. “I couldn’t do it without my leadership team, our volunteers and then we couldn’t do it without the community showing up. Our purpose is to create impact and our purpose is to create opportunities that these areas wouldn’t otherwise have.”

To see the full list of speakers for the 2023 Be Bright Conference or to purchase tickets, visit www.bebrightconference.com