Category Archives: 11-12 Students

Hero Story

My Hero: Leo Joseph Rayner

     Leo Joseph Rayner was my grandpa from my mother’s side. He was born in Sunbury, Victoria, which is a small town in the country outside of Melbourne, Australia, on the fourth of July, 1923. As a boy, he was free to roam the bush with his dog, Contact. Leo named his dog so that he could shout “CON-TACT!”, “con” meaning come on. My grandpa went to the local school for much of his life, but his family eventually moved closer to Melbourne, where he, Leo, attended St. Kevin’s. When my Grandpa was growing up, Melbourne was about a quarter of the size as it is now.

     My Grandpa had many occupations throughout his life. As a young man, he studied to become a Christian Brother who assists the priest and taught in schools. But Leo discovered that this wasn’t the right path for him. He then enlisted in the RAAF, or Royal Australian Air Force and became a crew member on bomber aircraft. Once WWII was over, my grandpa went back to school for 12th grade as many soldiers did. He then went to medical school, but it was too expensive, so he dropped out. Instead, he became a teacher and taught at the school that my mom and her brothers attended. Leo showed great integrity to take up as many occupations as he did.

     Courage was vital during the war, and Leo didn’t lack any. He was both a navigator and a gunner in a bomber plane, which was incredibly dangerous. Ultimately, he was the one that the enemy would target! Imagine if you were sitting in a plane with people firing bullets randomly at you. That would be a little like what my grandpa was going through. He also would have had the dwindling feeling that the plane could crash down onto the earth or into the ocean. Not letting these thoughts discourage him, Leo fought on valiantly until the war was over.

     Leo was also a smart man who never hesitated to step in and help those in need. Long after the war had finished, when Leo was teaching at my mom and her brothers school, things were just as interesting as in the WWII. He and his students were at the beach when a boy grabbed the tail of a sting ray. The animal’s barb pierced the boy’s radial artery and he was bleeding copiously. While everyone else was stunned by the event, my grandpa had the intuition to hold on to the boy’s arm, applying pressure, until they reached the hospital, saving the boy from bleeding to death. If it weren’t for Leo’s quick thinking and intelligent solution, the boy may have died.

      Leo was a generous and thoughtful man. Throughout his life, Leo worked with many charities. One of them was Legacy, an organization in Australia set up to help families of deceased veterans. There, he would help them fill out forms and obtain pensions. Another one of the charities that he worked for was St. Vincent De Paul, who helped disadvantaged families.

      My grandpa was a great woodworker, and always had something to teach my mom. He made the kitchen cabinets in my grandma’s old house, a desk for our family, a doll house, some small sailboats that really worked, tools, and many toys that my mom used to play with when she was little. When he was 75, he bought a computer and taught himself to use it. Leo was a very smart man who always taught my mom to read whenever you can, and that you can never stop learning. My mom in turn taught me these lessons as well, and they are skills I will use for the rest of my life.


My Hero Project

My Hero: Jean Hull

by Scarlett R.

     My hero’s name is Jean Hull, but I call her Nana. Jean was born on February 21, 1940 in Rutherfordton, North Carolina. She was oneof eight children, five brothers and two sisters, and she helped her parents by raising the younger ones. My grandmother lived in the country. She had cows, chickens, a garden and horses. Jean picked cotton for her parents, and sewed most of her own clothes. She liked to play barefooted in the streets, ice skate, climb trees, and ski. She was a tomboy. When she went to school she walked to the bus stop and rode the bus to school. When she was in sixth grade she walked to school. Since they moved into town, it was not too far of a walk. My grandmother liked school because she learned a lot there. She also went to the Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing and she attended Durham Technical School for some courses. Her favorite subjects in school were History and Math.

     Jean had a very hard childhood because she didn’t have a lot of money. To earn money, she babysat and worked in a department store. When Jean was sixteen her father died and his loss was really hard for her. My grandma has had a lot of occupations. She was also a hospital nurse until she retired in 1999. She said nursing was the hardest job she ever had. When she was younger, she didn’t have television, internet, or cell phones. Her favorite childhood memory was going to the beach for the first time when she was about fifteen. She met her husband, Heyward on a blind date. They had three children, Carolyn, my mom Lori, and Susan.

      Jean has been all over the world. She is now 72 but is still a lot of fun. Her best friend is Beverly and they are really close. She told me that her favorite year of life so far was age 56 because she traveled to China, where she got to climb the Great Wall of China as well as stand in the Forbidden City. These days, her favorite hobbies are reading, skiing, traveling, playing bridge, and taking care of her grandchildren. My grandmother believes her greatest accomplishments are becoming a grandmother and being a nurse. She is also proud of meeting lots of people from different cultures who she still maintains contact with after all of these years. Her advice to someone my age would be to enjoy being young and to appreciate good health.

      One thing that I love about my grandmother is that she is very generous. She takes care of me when I’m sick and has me over for visits even when I’m not. For Easter and for the fourth of July, my grandparents have the whole family come to their mountain house. They let us go there whenever we please. She takes me out to eat and buys me nice things. One of our favorite places to go for lunch is Suttons Drugstore Lunch Counter  in downtown Chapel Hill. Even when she’s not feeling well, she invites me over. She has her grandchildren over a lot. She is a very generous person.

      Another thing I love about my grandmother is that she is very friendly. She always is in a good mood and is always really nice. Every time I see her, she has a smile on her face. She makes me laugh and I always have a good time when I’m with her. She takes good care of me and makes delicious food for me. My grandmother is really fun to be around because she makes everything fun. She is very interesting because she has been to a lot of places and knows a lot about the different cultures. I’m always happy when I’m with her because she is a extremely nice and friendly person.

      One more thing I love about my grandmother is that she is very patient. She never rushes things. When we go shopping I take forever to try on different clothes. She always waits and never gets mad about how long I take. If I ever need more time to finish something, she waits for me to. If I don’t feel ready to go at some time, she waits with me until I feel ready. My grandmother is always very calm. Even if it’s cold outside and I wanted to play she would come outside with me until I wanted to come in. She is a very patient woman.

     My Nana has impacted my life because I want to be like her when I’m older. I think about her every day. I love my grandmother because she is a great person! You are my hero Nana!!

My Hero

this is my hero:

My Hero: Chelsea Gray

by Jack M.

      For my hero, I chose Chelsea Gray, who is the point guard for the Duke Women’s Basketball Team. When she was a kid, she really loved basketball. She attended Saint Mary’s High School before coming to Duke. She was born in California. This year, she earned the title of second best player of the year in the Atlantic Coast Conference. She is also on the ACC all academic team.

      If you have ever watched her play, you notice right away that she is a pass first player. The reason she is a pass first player is because when she was in sixth grade, she made a perfect behind the back pass in Amateur Athletic Union. A pass first player is a player who passes first before a shot. Now she is being compared to Magic Johnson for her vision and amazing passes. So if it hadn’t been for that pass she made in sixth grade, she might have never turned into the player she is today. Here are some more facts about Chelsea Gray.

      Successful is one of the biggest traits that my hero has. The way my hero shows this trait is by getting straight A’s in high school. Now think about this for a second. If you are reading this, you realize after thinking about it, that getting straight A’s in high school is not all that easy. You may be thinking, “Well I get straight A+s or got straight A+s on my report card too!”  What you may forget is that my hero is one of the best women’s basketball players in the country and she still gets straight A’s in all of her subjects. These A’s also come from one of the top academic universities in the whole country. That is a big accomplishment for a young person. Also, I may have forgotten to mention that she attends Duke for free! That is right, she attends Duke on a full scholarship! My hero has also gotten a triple double in a division one basketball game! A triple double  is when you get double digits in three different stats in basket ball like assist, rebounding, and points. These are the reasons why I think my hero is very successful.

     Respectful is another trait that my hero possesses. One way she shows this trait is by doing exactly what she is told when she is told to do it. She listens well and does not interrupt. She also shows her respect  for the game by hustling and running whenever she is on the court. Once, during a basketball practice, the rest of the team came off the floor by walking to the coach, but Chelsea ran without the coach telling her to “move it”. She also always pays attention and asks questions. Questions show the coach that you are engaged and interested in getting advice and direction.

      I chose Chelsea as my hero because she is so nice, especially to me. When I show up to practice and I look down, she cheers me up. She talks to me every time I come to practice. She even compliments me on my game.  She is kind to everyone, not just me. She cheers people up just like she cheers me up. She even asked me to play one on one. To me that is really nice.

      Thank you for reading my hero story. I hope you learned something about being a hero and what it takes to earn someone’s admiration, even if they are just a kid like me. I also hope you can watch Chelsea Gray, my hero, play in a basketball game sometime. She is number twelve on the Duke Women’s Basketball team.

 

 

 

Hero Story

My Hero: Homme Hellinga

                                                                     by Robert H.

     Homme Hellinga, my dad, is my hero. My dad had a childhood full of travel. He was born in London while his parents were on a sabbatical. Right after he was born, he was whisked back home where he belonged: Amsterdam. My dad’s parents were both historians of print (they studied the history of print and writing), so he commonly was dragged along to see famous books. By the time he was eleven, he saw almost all of the most famous Bibles in Europe. Throughout his earlier childhood, he lived in Amsterdam, enjoying school whilst he was there and loving the time spent on these trips. When my dad turned fourteen, he moved to England. About a year afterward, his parents followed up and joined him. For that year, he stayed at a nice family’s house until his parents showed up. Throughout his school times in Britain, he was a top student. He consistently received high grades, and learned many languages, like Latin and Greek. No matter how well my dad excelled at everything else, his passion was always Science.

      My dad attended the famous Edinburgh College in Scotland, where he adpted to the Scottish accent and took many advanced classes. After graduating from Edinburgh and collecting his Bachelor’s degree, he moved on to his next college, Cambridge, where he earned a PhD in biochemistry. My dad decided that the best place to pursue a career in biochemistry was in America. Therefore, he went on into Stanford, leaving his parents behind. After working for a while at Stanford, he decided to continue his work at Yale, where he met my mother. Here I am, I came along ten or eleven years later. My dad had a very educationally focused childhood, but always had time to sit down for a laugh. He is still in touch with his friends from both the Netherlands and Britain, along with all the brilliant scientists he met up with along the way. In any case, my dad is a likable guy. If you don’t believe me, just keep reading.

      My dad is a very creative and patient man. Whenever I have a crazy idea, he listens and turns it into something rational. It’s how I learn to think through problems. For example, I say something about how it smells on the highway. He asks why, and I answer because of the gasoline (it happens to be what I’m smelling). We end up talking about the disadvantages of gasoline over other forms of energy, which quickly moves on to a discussion about alternative energy sources. My dad is the main reason that, whenever I come across a problem, I don’t ask a question immediately and instead try and push through it. These conversations are also one of the reasons I love the wait in restaurants and long car rides: we do our best thinking then.

      One of my dad’s most prominent traits is his cheerful and energetic attitude. He can make any problem into a joke, and although sometimes you wish he was serious at times, in a minute you are laughing along with him. From his funny responses to the average question of a middle school-er: “What’s for dinner?” to the many ways he can cheer you up when you’re down. If you’re having a bad day at school, or you tripped and hurt yourself, he can make you laugh and joke with him. I really love this about my dad. If I had a bad day, I look forward to seeing him, either for him to give me advice or to laugh about it.

      One of the most important things about my dad that I love is his individuality and uniqueness. I have never met anyone like my dad. Although I haven’t met many British or Dutch people, I have a feeling there is no one like him. From this essay, you may think that my dad doesn’t seem like anything besides your average dad, and maybe he isn’t. That doesn’t mean he isn’t something special to me. The way he listens to me and laughs with me, the way he jokes around, the way he waves goodbye to me when I go to school, no one is exactly like him. Of course, everyone thinks that about their dad, but my dad has that sort of energy about him that says, “I may be an older man, but I still have a couple of tricks up my sleeve.” I’ve never seen that energy leave him.

      My dad, because he is my dad, is a big part of every decision I make. Because I seek out my dad’s opinion on so many things, I don’t make many incredibly stupid mistakes. Not only has he had an impact on the people the people closest in his life (my mom, my dog, and me), he has also made contributions to the rest of the world with his research. He has designed a program that can detect proteins that help cure diseases. My dad is my hero in every way.

This is my hero book

Dalton’s Hero Story

My Hero: Scott Bradford

 by Dalton B.

     My hero is Scott H. Bradford. I call him dad. My dad was born on April 30, 1965 in Boston, MA. He was adopted by my two grandparents at birth and lived in Durham, NC for the rest of his childhood. As a child he traveled a lot with the Duke basketball team because my grandpa was the doctor for the team. Some of his hobbies growing up were playing sports, trading cards and making model rockets. He currently lives in Chapel Hill and is a music attorney and a part time real estate agent.

      One of the reasons why my dad is my hero is because he is always there for our family and he is very brave. He is the kind of hero that you read about in books because he literally saved my brother’s life once! One time, my brother and I were playing volleyball by the pool. My dad told us not to go into the pool unless he was right there with us. I accidentally hit the ball in pool and I told my brother not to go in and get it. He was only three and he didn’t know how to swim, but of course he just jumped right in. He started drowning! So I screamed for my dad. He immediately ran outside and jumped in with all his clothes on and got him out. My brother was covered in blood on his face and we had to take him to the ER. He was fine but he had to get stitches because he had hit his head jumping in. I never forgot that day and if it hadn’t been for my dad things would have turned out very differently.

      My dad is a hero because he has a lot of determination. Sometimes we play basketball or we go running and he never gets tired and quits. He wants us to have fun so he will keep playing for a long time.  He’s also the only dad I know who will play video games with his kids. He loves to play Call Of Duty, Zombies or Black Ops with me. Many of those games are hard to figure out and most people in his generation would never have the patience to learn them. My dad was determined to learn them so he and I could do something fun together and I admire that about him.

      My dad is also very creative. He can always make up some sort of game for us to play when we are bored. He will also jump into any game my brother and I are playing and make it even more fun with his great ideas. When my brother and I were younger we always liked to play hide and go seek with him. He always made it more fun and frightening. For example, when we finally found him, he would roar or do something wild that would make our hearts thump and jump out of our skin.

      My dad has impacted my life by showing me to be brave, caring and fun. My dad always helps me when I need help with something that I can’t do. For those reasons and a thousand more, my dad is my hero.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Hero

MY HERO

BY CALLIE P.

     David Jordan Pierce, II was born in Houston, Texas, on November 5, 1995. He goes by Jordan, and lived in Houston for five years. Then his dad got a job in Durham, NC as an engineer, so the family moved to North Carolina. Jordan as a five year old, with two younger sisters, Mary Gates, three, and Callie, one. Jordan grew up in NC and made many friends. He started going to Durham Academy in kindergarten. Going to school is an enjoyment for Jordan, it is a place where he can hang out with friends, learn, and feel good about his grades. He is now a sophomore in high school and is getting mostly A’s. He is working on his Eagle Project for Boy Scouts right now and is trying out for varsity tennis at DA. Jordan is thinking about colleges like Georgia Tech, Rochester, or MIT, because of their good technology programs.This year, Jordan became involved in Young Life, an encouraging group for Christian high school students that he found out about through Nathan Scholl, his Sunday school and Youth Group leader at his church.

     Jordan has known Nathan for a few years and just recently attended a going-away party for Nathan at Jordan’s church, The Church of The Good Shepherd. Near the end of the party, everyone there wanted to play this fun game called Underground Church. In the game, there is a preacher that tries to hide from people called KGBs and the others try to find the preacher while running all over the church from the KGBs in the dark. This game is based on what really happened in England in the 1600s with the KGBs like the FBI in the USA and the others posing as the people who were secretly going to their church without the KGBs knowing.  I watched as Jordan got everyone together, about forty people, and told them all how to play the game. As I continued to stare at my brother, I thought, “Wow, that’s my brother who is getting everyone together.” I felt proud the this leader was my brother.

      My brother is really into basketball and likes to go outside sometimes after school on weekdays and shoot hoops. I go outside with him and I like to get his basketball and throw it back to him when it flies into the brush. When I am nervous or a little depressed, my favorite place to cheer up is with my brother. Sometimes, I just like to tell him how my day went. I blabber on and on and on, and he listens. I am really grateful to him to just listen when usually my other family members don’t have time or interrupt a little.

     On March 1st, Jordan went with some members of the Cross Country team to practice running long distance at an animal farm called the Duke Lemur “farm”. There was a particular trail that they usually ran, but one ninth grader was new and didn’t know which trail to take. So Dennis Cullen, the head coach for DA’s Cross Country team, asked Jordan and his friend Tommy, to go back down the trail to look for the “lost” guy. So Jordan and Tommy walked back on the trail, a couple of miles, to look for him. By then, it was getting dark, and Jordan and Tommy went to Mr. Cullen and said they couldn’t find the guy. It was about 7:00 pm when they got back and  finally found the ninth grader. I was impressed that my brother didn’t give up on this younger, lost kid and kept looking until they found him.

     I admire my brother for his unique mixture of characteristics that include leadership, compassion, and understanding. One of my favorite books as a child was called I’ll Love you Forever. A part of that book really applies to my hero:

“I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
As long as I’m living,
My brother you’ll be.”

I substituted brother, for baby, because you can fit anybody you love the most into that spot. That is who I love so much, my amazing big brother and my hero.

My Hero



My Hero
By Ethan W.
My hero’s name is Kaiping. He was born on December 25, in the city of Taipei located in Taiwan, China. He now lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He owns a car company called GTI. This company sells and buys cars.
In his childhood, he had many accidents such as, accidentally cutting his hand with a glass bottle. For example, my dad one day, was returning a glass bottle to the store so they could recycle it, but he slipped on the way down the stairs when he was leaving his apartment. The glass bottle shattered and a piece of glass cut a blood vessel in my dad’s left hand. The blood wasn’t dripping out of his hand, it was shooting out, like a hose spewing out water. The doctor managed to clean up his hand, but after his hand healed, he had very limited movement in his left pinkie. This caused him to give up piano and violin because he couldn’t play many songs. This accident damaged most of the nerve in my dad’s pinkie finger. The most he can do is move it a centimeter.
Perseverance is one of the traits my dad has. My dad was a great student and was always one of the best in the class. He made some mistakes in his childhood, but he always thought positively. Even sometimes, he was so motivated to do well in school that he would study until 2:00 in the morning. He showed dedication and perseverance in his life and that led to great success. In his childhood, his family never had very much money. One of his parents’ cars even had a hole in the floor that was so big that you could see through to the ground! The car didn’t have air conditioning either because it was too expensive back then for my dad’s parents to afford. He set goals to make enough money to help his family and he achieved everything he set out to do through perseverance.
I think my dad is courageous as well. For example, at my dad’s school, they would beat kids if they didn’t do well. They would also hit kids if they got a bad score on even just one test or quiz. The teachers usually used sticks, but one of my dad’s teachers used part of a long hose. One day, when my dad was in sixth grade, he forgot to study for a test and got a bad grade. His teacher put up the test scores on the blackboard and he had one of the lower scores. The teacher called him to come up in front of the class, and open his hand. My dad walked up to the front, held out his hand, and the teacher hit his hand with a rubber hose. My dad cringed but did not cry. Then he walked back to his seat with his hand stinging. My dad had to be incredibly brave to face that kind of punishment as a young kid.
Another trait I think that my dad has is honesty. He teaches honesty through the many games he plays with me such as basketball and chess. He teaches me how the games were played, and what he knows about those games. He never lies, even if the outcome might have been improved by changing the facts. My dad believes that honesty is so important that he will go to great lengths to make sure he tells the truth. He once was the score recorder in a basketball tournament, which was the semi-finals, and my dad made a mistake in keeping the score. No one caught the mistake until after the game was over and my dad felt terrible about it! He tried to find the refs and explain the mistake, but everyone had already left so there was no one to explain the situation to. When my dad went home, he called my coach to get the emails of the other team’s coaches. He ended up sending trophies to all the kids to make up for the discrepancy in the game.
Over all my dad had some good and bad events happen in his life. Both helped him become the person he is today. He learned from his mistakes so that he could have a happy life. My dad is a big part of my life and because of him, I have become the person I am today.

My Hero By Tyler C.

My Hero: Sam Carpenter

By: His son Tyler


My hero is Sam Carpenter, also known as my dad. He is my hero because he thrives when I am doing well. When I am not doing my best at something, he shows me how to improve. He was born on Martha’s Vineyard but he was raised in Orange, New Jersey. He took a commuter train everyday to high school. Soon my dad discovered lacrosse. He was good at the very start! He also worked very hard in school and on the lacrosse field. He set many goals for himself and achieved them. These are just a few of the reasons that my dad is my hero. Here are a few more:

My hero is very confident in himself. He was confident when he entered Middlebury University as a freshman. He was a three sport athlete during that first year of college. He played basketball,football and mainly lacrosse. During his college career, he played against and with some notable athletes such as Bill Belichik in lacrosse. After graduating from college, he focused on lacrosse and played one year in the MLL (Major League Lacrosse) for the Denver Rifels now known as the Denver Outlaws. After that, he began coaching. He was a coach at some major college lacrosse programs.


Another trait that I admire in my dad is that he is a very strong leader. His leadership is a big part of who he is. This trait helps him lead others to achieve their goals. When he is coaching a team, he requires everyone to do their best work, on and off of the field. He tells them that if they do anything inappropriate, he will suspend them or even kick them off of the team. His teams always work very hard for my dad because they respect him. They know that he means what he says and they always show their best effort for him. That is what being a great leader is all about.

My dad is a hero to me because I think that he is very successful! He has done a lot in his life to get where he is right now. One his major accomplishments was winning a gold medal when he was coaching the USA under nineteen world team. I remember crying because as soon as he won the title, I saw my brother waving the USA flag! I was so jealous because my brother got to wave the flag and I didn’t, but mostly I was crying because I was so proud of my dad and his team. He has coached many other teams in his life, and I am always very proud when I see him out there working on the field with his teams.

My dad has impacted my life so much! If he wasn’t in my life, I would be the person I am today. He is always there for me and I know I will forever be able to count on him. He supports me in everything I do and for that I am not only proud, but grateful too. He will always be my hero.

My Hero

My Hero

by Jessica A.


My hero is my grandmother, Helen Marie Faucette. She is 72 years old. She was born on March 6, 1940 in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina. She has three children, three grandchildren, and eleven siblings: six brothers and five sisters. She is retired and currently lives in Durham, North Carolina with her husband.

My grandmother’s childhood was rough. When she and her siblings got home from school, they would immediately have to change out of their school clothes and go to work in the fields and then they had to complete their homework after their work was finished. Her dresses were made out of empty flour bags. Their house was made out of plank and the roof was tin. Sometimes when it rained, water would drop into their house. But my grandmother had very hardworking parents, and they enjoyed life even though they were poor. My grandmother enjoyed school when she was young and was very excited to learn. She went to North Carolina Central University. After she graduated from NCCU, she went to be a secretary and a substitute at Eastend School in Durham. She also worked as a telegram operator supervisor at Western Union, a secretary at NCCU. Later she moved up to research assistant at NCCU. Her last two jobs were at Duke Business School and at the attorney general’s office in Raleigh until she retired.

When I think of a trait to describe my grandmother, I think of dependable. My grandmother had to learn to be dependable at an early age, because her mother died of an unknown cause when she was just 15 year old! She had to take care of her siblings and handle school like a grown up. That dependability has followed her into adulthood, because she’s not one for talk, she is all about doing. There was once a time when I was at school, and I was sick and my mom and dad were at work. Even though she was on her way to go exercise, she didn’t mind picking me up and taking me home. There have been times where I’ve been feeling down, and when everybody else is busy or has something else to do, but she always makes time to sit and talk to me. You know that if she says she’ll do something, she will do it.

My grandmother is very dedicated. It amazes me how she can be a Mother in the church, a caretaker, a grandmother and a mother, and she still has time to fit everyone in on her schedule. She is a role model in the community as well as in church. She is also dedicated because she doesn’t mind helping anytime she is needed. I don’t know how many times I’ve asked her to do favors for me, and she figures out ways to do them, even if she is extremely busy. The final thing she does that makes her so dedicated is her interest to help the community. I’ve seen her help people that she knows and people that she does not know, and I’ve seen other people’s days brighten because of her.

The last trait that describes my grandmother is caring. She helps people all the time with their issues, and has a genuine interest in helping people better themselves. One time she was looking at her church program, and on the sick and shut-in list, there was a lady she knew that had been ill for a long time. She called her room at Duke Hospital, and she didn’t get an answer. She then called the main office at Duke to see if the lady was still there. She called the lady’s house, and kept calling different places until she finally was able to reach the lady. She is always asking how my little sister and I are feeling, and you can tell she’s just not saying it because she feels like she has to. She cares about how you feel and does not mind going out of her way to help you feel better.

My grandmother has had a huge impact on my life. She has taught me respect, kindness, and how to love others despite their faults. She is a role model to everyone, and she is impossible not to love. Her advice has bettered me as a person, a student, and a daughter. It’s nice to have her to talk to when I have a serious issue I want to resolve, or just to talk and have a few good laughs. She is exactly who I want to be like when I grow up. I feel truly blessed to have her as a grandmother.

My Hero Book

This is a picture of my hero book that I made. Mrs. Gignoux, a local artist, helped me design the book.

 

 

Here is the story part I wrote about my grandfather.

My grandfather is William Ziegler Bradford. He was born in Charlotte, North Carolina on December 1st, 1931. He is currently retired and he is the son of the co-founder of the Bradford Clinic in Charlotte. When he was a child, he enjoyed being in nature very much. He began participating in boy scouts when he was twelve years old and loved camping out with the other scouts. As far back as he can remember, he always wanted to be a doctor. He was motivated to help people, and thought that medicine would be a good way to do that. He also loves playing sports and plays lots of tennis when he can.

My hero  is a very hard-working person. My grandfather has accomplished a great deal in his life all because he was willing to set goals and work toward them. He worked very hard in school when he was young to get an education, because he wanted to become a doctor. By being hard-working, he got into Davidson College, and then went to the University of Pennsylvania to continue his medical studies. Then he went to Sloan Kettering to do a fellowship in Oncology.He wanted to become a doctor because he felt a need to help others who were suffering. Because he worked so hard in school, he was able to choose a job that not only helped other people get better when they were sick, but also helped him to support his family. He visits the country of Africa and volunteers to build schools and provide resources to the children living there.

I also chose my grandfather as my hero because is he is so generous. He gives back to the community. He does this by going to Africa and building schools and doing volunteer work there. He gave about twenty people glasses who couldn’t see well and gave them the eye tests, all for free. My grandfather is also very involved in conservation of the environment. He hopes to make the world a better place for the next generation. He stays informed about issues facing our world by reading articles relating to environmental issues. He has subscriptions to National Geographic Magazine, the New Yorker, and the North Carolina Mountains Nature Report. Making time to improve our planet shows his generosity.

Another trait that my hero has is his dependability. You can count on my hero to follow through with his word. He always is there when he says he will be. He always comes to watch me play soccer and he’s always right on time to my games. My grandfather spends lots of time with us and takes us on trips. I know he is always there for us because he likes to spend time with me and my family. He is a big part of our lives and we know we can always depend on him.

My grandfather has had an impact on my life because he always wants to spend time with me. He takes me out on nature walks and shows me how to take care of Corey, his dog. My grandfather also shows me it is important to spend time with your family. We also go fishing together and vacation at his home in the mountains. I love spending time with my grandfather and look up to him. He is and always will be, my hero.