Transcript -
Transforming People, Places and Spirits

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After high school I have no plans of just coming to college. I was struggling to find a college that I could afford. I had been accepted to various universities, KU, Benedictine, Wichita, and others. 

I started off in the Penn Valley Community College. Went over to Nebraska and University of Nebraska in Lincoln for basketball. I had a family. Got kind of rough. Left school so I could feed my son. And I also wanted to be close to home because my mom and my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, so I walked away from school for a little while. 

I had been just struggling and, not just in class, but in my personal life. I know with the activities that we did from all the Catholic activities that we did here, they really helped me just kind of get back on track and become more spiritual. Because I was raised Catholic, but I had never really been really religious until I came to Donnelly. 

Playing basketball, I was always a floor leader, you know, but I never put that aspect into life because I always felt like people overlooked, you know, everything about me if it wasn't because of basketball. And so it was a humbling experience to get to the OL program, because it taught me leadership traits and qualities that I had that I would never use unless I was playing basketball. But it put a whole different aspect of life, you know, to look at for me, personally, on a personal level. Because I've always been a person who wanted to lead. I just didn't know how until I came to Donnelly. 

I know I'm not going to go anywhere. I'm probably going to stay here and give back to my community, not just as a nurse, but educating the public and just helping more students reach that education level that they want. 

My son is 12. When I have homework, we both, we'll sit down and do homework together. And he always say, Dad, I'm going to be like you, I'm going to go and I'm going to graduate from college. And I was like OK, so what did you want to be? He said, what do you mean? I said, most people want to be a professional athlete. He said no, I want to be a doctor or a lawyer. And that right there is enough motivation to push me to go for my doctorate. But we're going to get the Master's first. We going to wait and get the Master's first. 

Thank you. 

Thank you.