Partly Cloudy, 77°
Weather sponsored by:
Sponsored by:

Students told 'challenges are opportunities'

Tierney Harvey
Posted 6/21/17

ORANGE PARK – Saryn Hatcher walked up to the podium on the Thrasher Horne Center for the Arts stage on June 13 and took a selfie with the Florida Youth Challenge Academy director, deputy director …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Don't have an ID?


Print subscribers

If you're a print subscriber, but do not yet have an online account, click here to create one.

Non-subscribers

Click here to see your options for subscribing.

Single day pass

You also have the option of purchasing 24 hours of access, for $1.00. Click here to purchase a single day pass.

Students told 'challenges are opportunities'


Posted

ORANGE PARK – Saryn Hatcher walked up to the podium on the Thrasher Horne Center for the Arts stage on June 13 and took a selfie with the Florida Youth Challenge Academy director, deputy director and Class 32 cadets. Hatcher said he took the picture for his 74-year-old father, who taught him about public speaking.

“My father did a lot for me, so I thank him every time I give a presentation,” said Hatcher, the FLYCA principal and School District of Clay County drop-out prevention administrator.

Like many cadets at the military-style alternative high school, Hatcher experienced trouble at home growing up. FLYCA helps at-risk students 16-18 years old who lack credits or have been expelled or dropped out of high school. The June 13 ceremony celebrated cadets’ graduation from the five-and-a-half-month residential phase of the program.

“My father asked me to share my story in the future,” Hatcher said. “My father also said to me, ‘Tell the young people how you were able to focus and still earn your high school diploma, when kids teased you about your mother or the fact that you lived in so many different cities with all your aunts.’”

In a speech he called “Taming Your Burdens,” Hatcher told cadets about his mother’s struggle with schizophrenia and not having a permanent home or enough to eat. He now has a doctorate degree in instructional technology and distance education and years of experience in the Navy.

Hatcher described life in the 1970s for seven-year-old “Baby Boy,” his older brother and their young mother. He went on to reveal he was speaking of his own life. He said his mother struggled after a divorce and moved the family from city to city to stay with her sisters. His mother spent periods living on the streets. The boys’ aunts had children of their own, and there was often not enough food for all of them.

Eventually, Hatcher and his brother ended up with their aunt, Big Mama. When their mother wanted to move again, Big Mama said the boys deserved to have a home, and legally adopted them. When their mother found out, she was furious.

“She did the unthinkable. She actually took gasoline and burned Big Mama’s house down,” he said. Everyone got out, he said, but, “Baby Boy was still stuck in a closet, frozen with fear. He couldn’t get out.”

He said his cousin went back in the house to save Baby Boy – which was Hatcher. His mother was arrested for arson and placed in a mental institution for the criminally insane. Hatcher eventually went to live with his father and began rebuilding his life.

Hatcher said his father told him, “‘Let the young people know what you were thinking when you were actually homeless.’ He said, ‘Tell them what it felt like when you had to eat mustard sandwiches and you stayed focused when all thought everything was lost for you and your brother.’”

“Well, cadets, let me tell you what it felt like to eat mustard sandwiches,” Hatcher said. “It was horrible. I hated it. Every day of my life, I hated it.”

His message to the cadets was clear – like him, they can overcome their circumstances and reach success. He urged the teens not to define themselves by their struggles.

“Although it was now over 30 years ago when this took place, the scars and the burdens are still here. They’re still here,” he said. “They’re just hidden from you.”

“Before our mother died years ago, she actually earned her college degree with honors in business administration, and told both her now-adult sons, ‘If I can do it with all my burdens, there’s no excuse for you’,” he said.

The auditorium applauded and cheered.

“There’s no excuse, cadets,” he said.

FLYCA Director James Ransom told cadets that challenges are opportunities. He left the podium and sat on the edge of the stage, speaking directly to the cadets as they sat in the orchestra pit area.

“Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life,” Ransom told cadets, reciting from Proverbs.

The graduation featured a performance from the school’s drill team as well as marching and chanting as each of four platoons brought their flags to the stage.

“This is a day that we all look forward to because it’s all about the journey these young men and young ladies have taken over the five-and-a-half months,” Ransom said.

FLYCA is a cooperative effort between the Department of Education, department of Juvenile Justice, Department of Children and Families, Clay County District Schools and Department of Military Affairs and the Florida National Guard.

The program, which is voluntary, allows cadets to earn a GED or high school credits to catch up with high school class.

Teens are taught discipline as well as leadership and job skills. Cadets spend at least five hours a day in academic classes and get each up morning to take part in physical fitness, much like military training.

The graduation ceremony recognized the 163 cadets out of the 195 who entered the program five-and-half months ago.

“Many cadets were lost along the way,” said Abby Vazquez, deputy director.

Three cadets left at the request of their parents, 25 were terminated for unacceptable behavior, one left for medical reasons, one did not return from placement pass and two left for other reasons, according to Vazquez. Eight did not show up on the first day.

Many scholarships and awards were given out, including three $1,000 Construction Career Days scholarships. The Maj. Gen. Ronald O. Harrison Leadership Award went to cadet Rhett Butler, who was also honored for his community service hours. Ezekial Benjamin took home the Most Improved Cadet Award. The Class 32 valedictorian was Austin Kaplan and the salutatorian was Travis Hupp.

The Mentor of the Year Award was given to Patricia Laster, who was unable to attend the graduation. Ransom said that as the Class 32 cadets graduate from the residential phase, the Class 31 cadets were completing the end of the post-residential phase.

The quasi-military alternative high school program started in July 2001 and there are 40 similar programs nationally, he said.