More About Me
I guess I am what you would call a non traditional
student. I graduated from Clarksville
High School in 1987 and went straight to work delivering auto parts and
eventually I went to work for the Humana Corporation. I worked for Humana for almost five years
until Humana split itself into two separate companies, hospital and
insurance. I was given the option of
moving to Nashville or being laid off and at that time moving didn’t sound very
appealing. So I was laid off and went to
Florida to live with my uncle for awhile.
Eventually I returned to Clarksville and around the same
time my strength was deteriorating so I went to see the doctor. In 1995 I was diagnosed with Muscular
Dystrophy and that is when I went on Social Security Disability. After slowly continuing to lose strength I
was no longer able to walk and was forced into a wheelchair about four years
ago.
In September of 2006 some friends of mine approached me
with an idea. They wanted to help me get
my independence back. So we started a
grassroots effort to raise money so I could buy a wheelchair accessible vehicle
and eventually that effort became known as “Wheels for Wilton.” In a little over a year and a half we had
raised over twenty-four thousand dollars.
We raised the money any way we could, poker tourneys, fishing tourneys,
golf scramble, selling tickets to the Comedy Caravan, and we raffled anything
we could get our hands on. This past
July I purchased a brand new Dodge Grand Caravan that is currently in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana getting the hand controls installed.
I have learned so much about myself these past several
years. One of those things is that I
have a great deal of determination and a desire to be more than I am now. I hope to continue learning for many years to
come. My goal is to be able to
eventually remove myself from any and all government assistance. I think that process is really going to shift
into high gear here at Indiana University Southeast.