[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 151 (Tuesday, September 26, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S14323]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     JASON REESE--YOUTH OF THE YEAR

 Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, Jason Reese is a remarkable young 
man who is attending the University of Tennessee as a national merit 
scholar. He was named last week as the Boys and Girls Clubs of America 
``Youth of the Year.'' I join all my fellow Tennesseans in saluting 
Jason, and wishing him well as he enters college.
  I ask that an article that appeared in the October 2, 1995, edition 
of U.S. News & World Report be printed in the Record.
  The article follows:

           [From the U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 2, 1995]

                    Bootstraps--Trying in Tennessee

                          (By Dorian Friedman)

       As an introverted child from a troubled family, Jason Reese 
     never imagined himself as a role model. So when a young 
     neighbor saw him recently on TV and told him ``he wanted to 
     grow up to be like me, it just about made me cry.'' Jason 
     wasn't alone: There were more than a few teary-eyed admirers 
     in a Capitol Hill audience last week when the Boys & Girls 
     Clubs of America named the 18-year-old its National Youth of 
     the Year.
       Abandoned by his father as an infant and shuttled between 
     grandparents and a struggling single mother, Jason was raised 
     in ``the projects'' of Morristown, Tenn, a neighborhood where 
     drug dealing and gunfire were not uncommon. A haven where 
     Jason found surrogate fathers and friends was the local Boys 
     & Girls Club. There, he tutored the younger school kids, 
     helped run park cleanups and food drives and pitched in at a 
     nursing home. He also worked at a local auto-parts company, 
     tended to his two little brothers so there mother could 
     finish college and maintained nearly perfect grades in 
     school. He graduated from Morristown High West this year as a 
     National Merit scholar and drew a full scholarship to the 
     University of Tennessee, where he will study biology and 
     chemistry in hopes of becoming a doctor.
       As Youth of the Year, he voiced a message to other 
     teenagers: ``Stay determined, pursue your dreams and never 
     let anybody tell you that you can't get there.'' That 
     approach was taken long ago by another Boys Club product--
     originally from a place called Hope--who told Jason and the 
     other finalists how proud he was of them in the Oval 
     Office.

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