MOSES LAKE - Service and significance were the topics at the 21st annual Mayor's Prayer Breakfast Tuesday morning.

Keynote speaker David Krueger, a Moses Lake native, cited his niece Kara Garbe when talking about significance, and the concept of halftime. Many people spend a part of their lives pursuing success, he said, then there's halftime, and assessing where life is and where it's going. After halftime "your life morphs into this thing called the pursuit of significance," Krueger said.

His niece suffered from lupus, he said, which didn't stop her from pursuing a career in teaching. She died at age 33.

After her death many people talked about Kara's faith, "vibrant faith," and her impact on their lives, Krueger said. She had taken the time to encourage them, help them even while fighting her own health problems, he said.

That Kara Garbe took time made an impact, Krueger said. "Time may be your most valuable resource," he said.

The annual prayer breakfast almost overflowed the conference center at Big Bend Community College. "This might be the largest crowd we've ever had," emcee P.J. De Benedetti said. It's sponsored by the Moses Lake chapter of Kiwanis.

Krueger, a 1965 graduate of Moses Lake High School, recalled attending Midway Elementary and walking to the high school (now Frontier Middle School) from the family home on Fourth Avenue. He talked about playing baseball in high school - and losing his baseball scholarship at Washington State University, and how that incident taught him something important. He called that and similar incidents "wake up calls. It brings you to a fork in the road," he said.

"I didn't handle that wake-up call well," he said. But eventually, through other wake-up calls, he learned that it was important to accept God, and accept God's direction, he said.

The breakfast also featured prayers for the schools, the community, state and nation, delivered by Mark Johnson of the Moses Lake School District, Grant County Commissioner Carolann Swartz and 13th Legislative District Representative Matt Manweller.