, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
Six years after graduating from Luverne High School, Caitlin Miller returned last week to inspire current middle and high school students.
Principal Ryan Johnson introduced Miller at the morning session with students in grades 6 through 8 and the afternoon session to ninth- through 12th-grade students.
“It wasn’t long ago that Caitlin sat where you are now,” Johnson said.
Miller’s visit coincided with the Class of 2016’s selection of a class motto — a quote from Nobel laureate Andre Gide, “We cannot discover new oceans unless we have the courage to lose site of the shore.”
Six weeks ago, Miller, a 2010 LHS graduate, finished the 3,000-mile “Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge.”
She and her teammate, George Pagano, powered a two-person rowboat across the ocean, finishing in a record time of 58 days, 5 hours and 6 days. All 26 entrants finished the race, the first such occurrence of the race’s history, she said.
“The first 12 days were really hard,” Miller admitted.
It wasn’t until she settled into a pattern of sleeping and rowing in three-hour shifts that Miller learned she was more mentally tough than she first thought. The rest of the days she enjoyed the adventure.
“Don’t let fear hold you back on what you want to do … be open to new opportunities and adventures,” she said.
She was a student at the University of NebraskaLincoln, when she joined the school’s rowing team, and that is where she met rowing partner Pagano. He invited her to complete the challenge.
As part of the two-year preparation, she helped fundraise almost $200,000 by speaking to various groups and asking for sponsorships.
“I got over my fear of public speaking,” admitted the daughter of Alex and Karen Miller from Hardwick.
Local students received an up-close look at the boat in which Miller lived for almost two months through a self-produced video.
Miller incorporated pictures and the video diary entries she completed during the row from LaGomera to Antiqua. Her video called “Atlantic Challenge 2015” is currently on youtube.com.
In the video, Miller showed a flying fish often found onboard and the brilliant sunrises and sunsets she witnessed while rowing. She also showed the interior of her cabin, its equipment and the calendar and other markings she wrote on her cabin walls in black magic marker.
“Be the Biscuit,” Miller read as she panned the camera past one of her several written inspirational sayings.
The phrase is from her basketball-playing days at LHS. Her dad would tell her to be like the thoroughbred Seabiscuit. Trainers thought the horse was too small to race, but later became one of the greatest racing legends by trainers who didn’t give up.
After the video, Miller answered student questions. Topics ranged from “Did she find Nemo?” She did not (in reference to the animated Disney movie) to “What would have been her greatest fear about completing the race?”
It took Miller a moment to answer the latter question.
“Not finishing would have been the worst thing that could have happened,” Miller told the students. “So many people were invested in our journey.”
Miller is planning another journey and has already agreed to compete in the Atlantic challenge again — this time in 2017 as a member of the first four-woman U.S. team to compete. She’s also been asked to complete a row later this year down the Amazon River.
Until then, Miller will return to her seasonal position with the U.S. Forestry Service, headquartered in Utah.