I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and took time to enjoy your family and other loved ones. We surely did!
Today’s story is not about the infant we celebrated yesterday; not the one who rose from poverty to become the leader of billions of people searching for meaning and love; not the one who still leads His people more than 2000 years after His death. No, today I want to tell you about a young man I read about in yesterday’s Tennessean.
Cody Stothers was born Dec 23, 22 years ago, in a prison hospital in Arkansas and was handed over to his “disabled” grandmother. I have “disabled” in quotes because while she was collecting disability for her physical health, she was not disabled when it came to parenting her grandson.
Living on less than $10,000 yearly she relied on “angel trees” and gifts from strangers for his Christmas presents and he quickly learned there would not be birthday presents. She taught him that good parenting was not dependent on material things; it was founded on love!
Cody told the Tennessean, “She made it pretty obvious to me that if I wanted to have a life that was different than a lot of people in my family of poverty …I was going to have to go to college and get an education.” And Grandma knew how to get him educated!
She began by taking him to the local library where he devoured books and developed a curiosity for learning. Later he used a computer, provided by Aspirnaut, on the school bus while going to and from school.
Aspirnaut is a program developed by Vanderbilt professors, Drs Julie and Billy Hudson, to promote “… science, technology, engineering, and math to students from rural areas and disadvantaged backgrounds.” The program has been successful for kids in eight States and was an essential part of Cody’s success leading to a scholarship to Vanderbilt for his undergraduate studies. He will graduate this spring.
But there is more to the story! Just before cutting the birthday cake his grand mother made for him Monday night, the phone rang. It was Vanderbilt telling him he was accepted into the MD/PhD program on a full scholarship! Cody will become one of a select few MD/PhD students at that prestigious institution and will spend his life as a physician and research scientist. It doesn’t get any better than that!
Congratulations Cody Stothers! I can’t wait to call you Doctor Stothers!
I’ve seen many, and I mean many, kids go from poverty to success, fame, and fortune because of a “can do” attitude, coupled with hard work, and cooperation with the available resources. Where you go in life depends not on where your start, but where your goals are. Set your goals high, work hard, ask for help, and don’t look back!
I want to thank Tom Wilemon of the Tennessean for reporting this story. Read the rest of his story in Wednesday’s Tennessean or contact him at twilemon@tennessean.com.
To learn more about Aspirnaut, or to make a contribution go to www.aspirnaut.org.