kids these days

Throughout May, commencement speakers everywhere beseech young graduates to embrace opportunity as they step into a bright future. Each graduate has a story about his or her journey to this day. Some have traversed dark and challenging terrain ...

Holly Hope was worried that her son would struggle not only academically in high school, but also socially. Hope worried Currin’s Down syndrome would lead to ostracization.

Anyone who walks through the campus at W.T. White High School can see that isn’t the case. “He probably has 30 different handshakes with everybody. He seems perfectly at ease to me. He’s in a place where he has blos- somed,” Hope says.

Currin has been a staple of the school’s cheerleading team for the past four years. When the Panthers football team wins, he’s ecstatic, but when they lose, he covers his eyes and remarks that they are “party poopers.” Currin first found out about the cheer team at a biannual “Meet W.T. White Night” he attended with his mom while he was in the eighth-grade. After the performance, instruc-