rebelling against low expectations
(HuffPo) — At age 8, Maria Keller, of Orono, Minn., learned that not all children own a book. Determined to do something about it, she declared she would donate 1 million books to kids in need by the time she turned 18. Keller not only reached her goal this week, she did it five years early. On Tuesday, a children’s book publisher in Mankato, Minn., gave the 13-year-old philanthropist the...
(AP) — A Michigan teenager who wanted to raise awareness about cerebral palsy by walking 40 miles with his younger brother strapped to his back battled heat, rain, fatigue and more to finish the trek Sunday. Hunter Gandee, 14, had been planning for weeks to pull off the walk, hoping to put a face on the muscular disorder that prevents his 7-year-old sibling, Braden, from being able to walk...
(HuffPo) — Fifteen-year-old Nathan Han received the prestigious Gordon E. Moore award at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, which is the largest international pre-college science competition, for his creation of a software tool that can “identify and predict cancer-causing mutations in a person’s DNA.” “I did this by minding-mutation data from online...
(Politico) — A week before her high school graduation, Saira Blair was barely old enough to vote when she unseated a West Virginia lawmaker almost four times her age. After Tuesday’s GOP primary, the 17-year-old is one election away from becoming the youngest state lawmaker in West Virginia history. Larry Swan, sworn in as a 20-year-old delegate in 1972, set the current record...
(Upstart) — Few teens can lay claim to getting the attention of one Fortune 500 company, let alone two. Meet Mississippi teenager Sarah Kavanagh, who launched an online competition over an ingredient in both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola’s sports drinks. Both drink makers have removed it. Coca-Cola is dropping an ingredient its Powerade sports drink, following in the footsteps of its rival PepsiCo...
(MarketWatch) — The number of teens with summer jobs has fallen roughly 30 percentage points since the late ‘70s. In 1978, nearly three in four teenagers (71.8%) ages 16 to 19 held a summer job, but as of last year, only about four in 10 teens did, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the month of July analyzed by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. It’s been...
(AccessNorthGA.com) — “Do hard things.” That was the message given to Hilliard A. Wilbanks Middle School sixth-graders Monday morning. The words came from John H. Wilbanks, son of the late Capt. Hilliard A. Wilbanks, on the 47th anniversary of the captain’s death in Vietnam. The sixth-grade students filled the Cornelia Community House as special guests for Capt. Hilliard A...
On September 12, 1962, then U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave his famous “Moon Speech” at Rice University, with the goal of persuading the American people to support NASA’s efforts to send a manned space flight to the moon. The full speech runs around 18-minutes, but these 47-seconds are the most well-known. Here, JFK explains why the United States wants to go to the moon and...
(New York Times) — When a pack of whip-thin girls zipped across the finish of the 1,600-meter race at a recent track meet here, the smallest runner’s legs wobbled like rubber, and she flopped into her waiting coach’s arms. She collapses every time she races. Kayla Montgomery, 18, was found to have multiple sclerosis three years ago. Defying most logic, she has gone on to become one of the fastest...
Some of you know that Ana Harris (Brett’s wife) is very sick with Lyme Disease, a nasty infection spread by ticks that can get very serious if misdiagnosed or mistreated. Unfortunately, many Americans (including doctors) are woefully uneducated about Lyme and other tick-borne illnesses, even as new cases continue to be reported at record levels. This inspiring, 30-minute documentary about...
rebelling against low expectations
