VALLEY CENTER – Kate Garnes grew up doing theater and singing with a competitive show choir in high school before cultivating her talent even further to land a career as a character performer with Walt Disney World.
 
But when Garnes made the decision nearly a decade ago to turn her focus toward motivational speaking to teen groups, it was essentially her first stage role as herself.
 
And Garnes wondered how she would be received.
 
“When I first started speaking, I thought I’m a lower, middle-class white girl from Missouri,” Garnes said. “I’ve never fought a shark, I’ve never been on television, I’m not an Olympian, I have all my appendages.
 
“Why is anyone going to listen to me? And my coach said, ‘That’s why. Because you will resonate with people.’”
 
On the way to playing characters like Mickey Mouse at Disney and the Hogwarts Frog Choir conductor in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando Resort, Garnes developed her share of emotional battle scars. A childhood dance teacher’s hurtful statement, a father’s absence at a singing performance and peer gossip as a young adult drained Garnes’ spirit – but it also gave her a firm understanding of the mental-health perils young people face.
 

With an encouraging message to build a positive internal voice, strengthen communication skills and lead with confidence and compassion, Garnes recently returned to familiar surroundings for a two-week tour of Kansas, speaking to high school and middle school student leaders and their advisors at eight KSHSAA student council regional conferences.
 
The half-day conferences began Sept. 22 at Mill Valley High School and continued the first week at Pittsburg, Derby and Minneapolis. Week 2 stops included Free State, Quinter and Dodge City.
 
After concluding her tour Thursday at Valley Center High School, Garnes had shared her personal journey with nearly 4,000 students and advisors from 179 Kansas high schools and 64 middle schools.
 
“It has been really cool,” said Garnes, who earned her associate’s degree in music from Butler Community College before finishing her bachelor’s degree work in vocal music education from Wichita State in 2012. “It’s not always easy to come back and speak where you consider home. But this was fun, and I got to see a lot more of Kansas than I had living in Wichita.”
 
Garnes, who now lives in Atlanta with her husband, Casey Casteel, spent 14 years performing in Orlando theme parks. In addition to traveling the country speaking to teen groups, she has authored a book, worked as a choreographer and serves as a professional disc jockey.
 
Garnes confirmed her calling as a motivational speaker during her 10-year class reunion at Rock Bridge High School in Columbia, Missouri. Looking around at her fellow classmates, she had an epiphany.
 
“I was 28. I had no kids. I wasn’t married and I played dress-up for a living,” Garnes said. “In my eyes, everybody else figured it out and I didn’t.
 
“A girl came up to me and said, ‘Kate, what’s wrong?’ And I said, ‘I failed. Look around.’ And she said, ‘God doesn’t always have life look like what we thought it would. What do you want your life to look like?’ I had nothing to lose and I said, ‘I want to be a motivational speaker.’ I’d never told anyone that before, but as soon as I said those words, all doubt, confusion, questioning was gone.”
 
Garnes, an only child who was raised by a single mom, shared her story of the pain caused by hurtful words and the self-doubt it caused during her formative years. To her, those incidents “became a recording because one person made one comment to you one time. One person said one thing to you or about you, and it became your truth.”
 
To combat harmful narratives, Garnes encouraged students to “find their battle cry,” assuring them they have the power to silence negativity and re-define their worth.
 
After her keynote, Garnes conducted a students-only session that focused on effective communication for leaders. The message highlighted the importance of seeing, hearing and understanding each person within a group.
 
To illustrate, Garnes brought South Haven student council member Tony Trillo on stage and shared pointers on how to remember names. In another exercise, Garnes stationed individual students throughout the auditorium and had them tell a minute-long story to small groups of students while the students focused on typing as many of the 50 states as they could into their phones.
 
The point was to illustrate how not being heard made each speaker feel.
 
“The message is, ‘Yes, it’s hard to be a teenager,’” Garnes said. “That gets tailored a little differently to student leaders. They take being a teenager and then they turn it up to 15. I definitely focus on, ‘I see you and I know what you’re going through.’”