The Chambers County School District is pleased to have hosted Mr. Jim Bradford & H.K. Derryberry for inspirational presentations of hope and determination hosted across the school district this past Wednesday, Oct. 2nd, 2024. H.K. & Jim started their visit with a morning program at W.F. Burns Middle School sharing their message to 500 plus 6th-8th grade students from the W.F. Burns gymnasium. Following their stop at W.F. Burns, the visiting duo traveled to Valley High School to share their message at 10 a.m. in a program that was recorded and shared by Gator Media. H.K. & Jim then made a visit to Mr. Mark Robinson’s self-contained classroom to make a personal visit to special needs students on the VHS campus. HK & Jim traveled five-plus hours from their homes in suburban Nashville, TN to make their visit to Chambers County.
Following the visits totraveled the Valley High School campus, H.K. & Jim made a brief stop for refreshing drinks at the Valley Dairy Queen which serves as one of the CCSD’s Partners in Education. The team then travelled for a delicious spaghetti plate lunch visit with Mrs. Sara Jones’s self-contained class at LaFayette High School. The students in the by class enjoyed lunch with H.K. & Jim after having prepared for the last month reviewing the audiobook title from Amazon entitled The Awakening of HK Derryberry., The book is an inspiring true story of how one man (Jim Bradford) was willing to step out of his upper middle-class world into the life of a young, disabled boy with a dismal future (H.K. Derryberrry). Little does Jim Bradford realize how the transformational potential of that friendship would change his life for both himself and H.K. Following lunch with Mrs. Jones’s, class, H.K. & Jim delivered their third and final inspirational message of the day to 350 plus students from both LaFayette High School and J.P. Powell STEAM Magnet School from the stage in the LHS auditorium.
HK Derryberry came into the world 3 months prematurely weighing just 2 pounds with the odds stacked heavily against him. He was taken from his unmarried mother’s womb three months prematurely when she was killed in a car wreck in which his Father was driving under the influence. After ninety-six days of seesawing between life and death, HK’s grandmother took him home without much hope for a future. HK never met his Father, his mother, or his Maternal Grandmother. He suffers from Cerebral Palsy and became blind as a newborn when physicians left him on pure oxygen for too long a period of time to prepare him for life-saving surgery after his premature birth. Additionally, HK is paralyzed on his right side but still taught himself to read Braille with only one hand.
One Saturday morning twenty-five years ago on October 16, 1999, Jim Bradford, a successful businessman in his mid-fifties, happens into Mrs. Winner’s Chicken and Biscuits and sees a nine-year-old’s head pressed down against a black plastic boom box with a crooked antenna and three strips of silver duct tape stretched across the battery cover. He can’t help but notice the long, white plastic braces on each of the child’s legs. Mr. Bradford learns that HK’s grandmother is forced to bring him to the fast-food restaurant where she works, leaving him to sit alone all day for her eight-hour shift at a small table, with only his boom box for company. On subsequent Saturdays, Jim feels drawn back to the restaurant to meet with HK and begins spending every weekend with him.
Eventually, it becomes apparent that buried beneath HK’s severe disabilities is one spectacular ability. He is diagnosed with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM), which involves superlative powers of recollection that enable him to remember everything that has happened to him since the age of three. Only 62 people in the entire world have been diagnosed with HSAM on our planet of 7 plus billion people, but none of them have the physical disabilities of HK Derryberry.
HK told students and staff to let their attitude set their, attitude bestseller attitude as he never allows his disabilities to hinder his capabilities because he keeps a positive attitude. HK told the students and staff that the only disability any of us have in life is a negative attitude. HK graduated from the Tennessee School for the Blind and earned a regular Tennessee High School diploma.
Since 2017, HK and Jim have shared their inspirational story at school assemblies, teacher institutes, civic groups and community organizations in 29 states as well as the Cayman Islands. HK and Jim have been featured nationally in the USA Today, on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, and bestselleron the Huckabee Show on TBN. The team’s book publication “The Awakening of HK Derryberry” is an Amazon best seller and winner of the 2017 Audi Award for the nation’s best non-fiction faith-based audiobook shout-out. Special thanks to CCSD Superintendent, Dr. Casey Chambley whose networking connection made it possible for HK & Jim to bring their message to pour into our students and staff in Chambers County School District! A big shout out goes to Gator Kincaid for livestreaming the Valley High School presentation so all of the students from the 9th & 10th grades could view the program as it was presented to the juniors and seniors live in the VHS gymnasium.
Attached are photographs from the visits by HK & Jim Bradford where students and staff lined up following the program tobestseller on personally speaking speaking speaking to our inspiring guests.
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