AURORA | None of the hardships were slight. None of the impediments were ordinary.
There was the former convict who had served more than six years in prison. With the help of a director from a local police academy, he carved out a route toward an associate degree and a career as a personal trainer. A couple from North Sudan in Africa who had come to Colorado knowing only a few words of English are both fluent and training for work in engineering and auto repair. A drama student who worked even harder to perfect her craft and create new work after discovered she had lymphoma.
Such were the stories on display during the Community College of Aurora’s Student Success Awards ceremony held at the school’s CentreTech campus on Dec. 7. A group of 22 students from the college accepted honors from their professors and their peers. Each had been nominated for their academic achievements, but the recognition went deeper. Every one of the honorees had faced particular hardships, challenges that seem insurmountable on their surface.
Take Jack Howard, who went to high school in Colorado but failed to receive a diploma after moving to California. Howard fell in with the wrong crowd. He spent more than six years in prison, where he received his GED and started to consider a new direction.
“When I was younger, I used to dream about stuff like this, any kind of recognition. It means a lot to me,” said Howard, 45, after receiving very public praise from Carter and other faculty. He compared his future to the rough path he’d faced as a younger man with no high school diploma and little direction. “It was a dead end, all dead ends. I’d been on the side of the road and seen how people really live.”
A fresh start came in working with CCA faculty like Michael Carter, the director of the school’s Police Academy program who encouraged Howard in more ways than one. With the help of Carter and other faculty, Howard made his way through the school’s Personal Trainer Academy and now works part-time at the CCA gym, guiding students bound for careers as police officers.
“We had to go through some struggles to get me in to a job here,” Howard said. “Giving people with my background a second chance means a whole lot.”
During the ceremony on Dec. 7, Carter sang his student’s praises, insisting that “it doesn’t matter what you’ve been, it’s what you’ve become.”
The rest of the honorees faced different kinds of struggles. Anxiety disorders. An adolescence spent between group homes, foster homes and jail. Life as a single parent. These were the obstacles faced by just a few of the students who accepted awards last week. What’s more Jennifer Bird, Bethany Even, Michelle Twaddell and James Fountain received scholarships worth $500.
For the professors who nominated the honorees and told their stories to an audience that included CCA President Alton Scales, Commerce Bank Chairman Jim Lewien and published poet and retired English professor Wayne Gilbert, the tales of hardship and determination perfectly summed up the mission of the Community College of Aurora.
“This is an example of how CCA works,” Carter said. “We transform lives … We do it with their help and their heart.”
Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com or 720-449-9707