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.