He got the scholarship by keeping every grade above the line,
He worked the kitchen shift on weekends for the supplemental dime,
He carried all his books across the campus in the cold,
He was not the richest and he was not the bold.
The scholarship kid who earned it with the grade,
The scholarship kid who was not afraid,
The scholarship kid with the library card and the long night,
The scholarship kid turned the disadvantage into light.
They ask him at the reunion what the secret was,
He says: I simply did not stop, and that is all it does,
Every person in this room had obstacles to clear,
I just refused to let the obstacle become my career.
His children have the photograph of the scholarship letter framed,
On the wall beside the graduation where he was named,
The first in thirty years to win the full four-year award,
The scholarship kid knew every bit of what he worked toward.