LilMtnCbn
03-03-2004, 07:04 AM
http://www.winchesterstar.com/TheWinchesterStar/040303/Area_Hibbard.asp
Failure Not an Option
A Difficult Childhood Didn’t Stop Shawn Hibbard from Choosing Success
By Linda McCarty
Edition Staff Writer
By the time Shawn Hibbard was 14 years old, he had lived in 15 foster homes,
attended nine schools, and had suffered through a failed adoption.
“The way I grew up and what I’ve been through, people expected me to
fail,” said Shawn, 25, who grew up in Frederick County. “Everyone has a
choice of failing or succeeding. I chose to succeed.”
Now he’s a sergeant in the Virginia Army National Guard, a married man with
two children, and a homeowner.
Before being called into active duty on Monday, Shawn was studying for a bache
lor’s degree in education, while working as a teaching assistant at Timber
Ridge, a residential school in Reynolds Store for male adolescents with
emotional, learning, and behavioral difficulties.
“We’re very proud of Shawn. He’s come a long way,” said one of
Shawn’s foster parents, Peggie Holt, who now lives in Warren County.
“We’d like to take the credit, but we can’t. He did it on his own.”
***
Shawn was 3 years old, when he knew life was bound to be better somewhere else.
So with a full thermos and a few sandwiches, he led his two brothers, ages 4
and 6, from their home in a trailer park near Stephens City to Dinosaur Land
Prehistoric Forest, about a half a mile away.
“We planned to live in the big shark at Dinosaur Land, but someone saw us
climbing over the fence and called the Virginia State Police,” said Shawn,
before he was called into active duty.
Officers picked the boys up, took them to the state police barracks in
Kernstown, checked their home, and then called Frederick County Social Services
Department, which placed the boys in foster care.
“There were 11 of us, including my mother and aunt and their boyfriends,
living in a two-bedroom trailer,” Shawn said.
Shawn and his brothers lived together in a foster home for the next four years.
“Then my brothers were adopted, but I wasn’t,” Shawn said. “Their
adoptive mother said I was too much like a mother-figure for my brothers, and
they wouldn’t do what she told them to do if I was around.”
Shawn said his brothers made him the leader of their little pack because of his
size.
“I was already bigger than they were when we ran away to Dinosaur Land,”
said Shawn, who is now 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 220 pounds.
Shawn said he had a difficult time adjusting to separation from his brothers.
“Shortly after they were adopted, I was moved to another foster home,”
Shawn said. “I was acting out a bit more and was a problem in school, because
my whole family had been taken away from me.”
***
When Shawn was 10, he was adopted by a Frederick County family. “The
adoption, though, didn’t work out.”
Shawn left his adoptive parents when he was 14 and went to live with Peggie
Holt and her husband, Greg, east of Stephens City. Shawn lived with the Holts
while he was a student at Aylor Middle School and Sherando High School.
“That was my 15th foster home,” Shawn said.
Shawn came to his new foster parents with a lot of problems with anger and
resentment.
“I had always been told no one wanted me,” Shawn said. “I had a wall up
and wouldn’t let anyone close to me.”
But Shawn and the Holts clicked.
“They didn’t pressure me to talk about my past. They had a lot of rules,
but they let me do what I wanted to do within those rules and become a man,”
Shawn said. “Then I let the wall down. It was like a burden had been lifted.
I learned to trust and rely on others. I took a risk, but that’s what life
is, a risk.”
Shawn played football and basketball and ran track at Sherando.
Two days after his 17th birthday, Shawn joined the Virginia Army National
Guard.
“My foster mother signed for me,” Shawn said, “because she knew it was
something I really wanted to do.”
Shawn spent nine weeks during the summer between his junior and senior year in
basic training at Fort Benning, Ga.
“I came to the first day of school my senior year in my military dress
uniform,” Shawn said. “My teacher thought I was a visitor from the Army,
until I told her I was one of her students.”
During his senior year, Shawn went from making C’s and D’s to making all
A’s and B’s.
Before Shawn graduated in 1997, he had won two Warrior Pride awards for
academic excellence and was voted Most Likely to Succeed by his senior class.
After graduation, Shawn went back to Fort Benning for advanced individual
infantry training.
He came home, rented an apartment, and was a vocational teacher at Grafton
School in Clarke County for 11/2 years.
He became a teaching assistant at Timber Ridge in 1999.
“I’m taking classes at Lord Fairfax Community College and will then
transfer to Old Dominion University because I want to earn a degree in
education and teach history and physical education,” Shawn said during the
interview before his deployment.
***
Shawn met Melissa Nicole Messick in 1997 at Pack’s Frozen Custard. The couple
fell in love, moved in together, and were married less than a year later.
The Hibbards live with their two children — Kayla, 5, and Colby, 2, in Bunker
Hill, W.Va.
Shawn was born in Nashville, Tenn., where he and his two brothers were living
with their parents when they separated.
“My mom and dad started having difficulties, and she took me and my brothers
and ran,” Shawn said. “We lived in about seven different states before we
came to the trailer park near Stephens City.”
Shawn started looking for his family in 1999 and found them.
His brother, Tommy Brandon, is in the Army military police in Alaska and has
traveled all over the world. His brother, Paul Brandon, who has cerebral palsy,
is living in a group home in Pennsylvania.
Shawn’s mom, Ethel Nicely, joined the Army after her kids were taken away.
After leaving the Army, she settled in Fayetteville, N.C.
Shawn’s father, Tommy Spoonemore, is in Oklahoma.
“My dad has really gotten his life together,” Shawn said.
Shawn has visited his parents and his brothers, and they have all visited him.
“My mother had kept my baby blanket and gave it to me,” Shawn said.
“I’ve given it to my daughter.”
***
Shawn is a sergeant in the Virginia Army National Guard’s 3rd Battalion, 116
Infantry Division. Since the war with Iraq began almost a year ago, Shawn has
served six months on active duty stationed at the National Guard Bureau in
Arlington.
Shawn was called back into active duty on Monday. He will spend several months
training in the United States, and then he will probably be deployed to the
Middle East.
“I’ll be gone this time for about 18 months,” Shawn said. “I’m
excited about being able to serve my country, but I feel a lot of emotion about
this one. I’ll miss my daughter’s first-grade year, and I’m going to miss
my kids and my wife dearly.”
Staff members at Timber Ridge said they will notice a void by Shawn’s
absence.
“We hate for him to be gone because he’s very dependable and very good with
the kids,” said Timber Ridge Principal Jennie Johnson.
John Lamanna, the school’s facility director, added: “He can relate very
effectively with troubled youth. He will absolutely have a job when he
returns.”
Shawn is proud of his accomplishments and harbors no ill will toward anyone.
“I have confronted my fears and demons and have won,” Shawn said. “I have
no resentments or regrets for anything that has happened to me because what I
went through made me what I am today.”
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
Failure Not an Option
A Difficult Childhood Didn’t Stop Shawn Hibbard from Choosing Success
By Linda McCarty
Edition Staff Writer
By the time Shawn Hibbard was 14 years old, he had lived in 15 foster homes,
attended nine schools, and had suffered through a failed adoption.
“The way I grew up and what I’ve been through, people expected me to
fail,” said Shawn, 25, who grew up in Frederick County. “Everyone has a
choice of failing or succeeding. I chose to succeed.”
Now he’s a sergeant in the Virginia Army National Guard, a married man with
two children, and a homeowner.
Before being called into active duty on Monday, Shawn was studying for a bache
lor’s degree in education, while working as a teaching assistant at Timber
Ridge, a residential school in Reynolds Store for male adolescents with
emotional, learning, and behavioral difficulties.
“We’re very proud of Shawn. He’s come a long way,” said one of
Shawn’s foster parents, Peggie Holt, who now lives in Warren County.
“We’d like to take the credit, but we can’t. He did it on his own.”
***
Shawn was 3 years old, when he knew life was bound to be better somewhere else.
So with a full thermos and a few sandwiches, he led his two brothers, ages 4
and 6, from their home in a trailer park near Stephens City to Dinosaur Land
Prehistoric Forest, about a half a mile away.
“We planned to live in the big shark at Dinosaur Land, but someone saw us
climbing over the fence and called the Virginia State Police,” said Shawn,
before he was called into active duty.
Officers picked the boys up, took them to the state police barracks in
Kernstown, checked their home, and then called Frederick County Social Services
Department, which placed the boys in foster care.
“There were 11 of us, including my mother and aunt and their boyfriends,
living in a two-bedroom trailer,” Shawn said.
Shawn and his brothers lived together in a foster home for the next four years.
“Then my brothers were adopted, but I wasn’t,” Shawn said. “Their
adoptive mother said I was too much like a mother-figure for my brothers, and
they wouldn’t do what she told them to do if I was around.”
Shawn said his brothers made him the leader of their little pack because of his
size.
“I was already bigger than they were when we ran away to Dinosaur Land,”
said Shawn, who is now 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 220 pounds.
Shawn said he had a difficult time adjusting to separation from his brothers.
“Shortly after they were adopted, I was moved to another foster home,”
Shawn said. “I was acting out a bit more and was a problem in school, because
my whole family had been taken away from me.”
***
When Shawn was 10, he was adopted by a Frederick County family. “The
adoption, though, didn’t work out.”
Shawn left his adoptive parents when he was 14 and went to live with Peggie
Holt and her husband, Greg, east of Stephens City. Shawn lived with the Holts
while he was a student at Aylor Middle School and Sherando High School.
“That was my 15th foster home,” Shawn said.
Shawn came to his new foster parents with a lot of problems with anger and
resentment.
“I had always been told no one wanted me,” Shawn said. “I had a wall up
and wouldn’t let anyone close to me.”
But Shawn and the Holts clicked.
“They didn’t pressure me to talk about my past. They had a lot of rules,
but they let me do what I wanted to do within those rules and become a man,”
Shawn said. “Then I let the wall down. It was like a burden had been lifted.
I learned to trust and rely on others. I took a risk, but that’s what life
is, a risk.”
Shawn played football and basketball and ran track at Sherando.
Two days after his 17th birthday, Shawn joined the Virginia Army National
Guard.
“My foster mother signed for me,” Shawn said, “because she knew it was
something I really wanted to do.”
Shawn spent nine weeks during the summer between his junior and senior year in
basic training at Fort Benning, Ga.
“I came to the first day of school my senior year in my military dress
uniform,” Shawn said. “My teacher thought I was a visitor from the Army,
until I told her I was one of her students.”
During his senior year, Shawn went from making C’s and D’s to making all
A’s and B’s.
Before Shawn graduated in 1997, he had won two Warrior Pride awards for
academic excellence and was voted Most Likely to Succeed by his senior class.
After graduation, Shawn went back to Fort Benning for advanced individual
infantry training.
He came home, rented an apartment, and was a vocational teacher at Grafton
School in Clarke County for 11/2 years.
He became a teaching assistant at Timber Ridge in 1999.
“I’m taking classes at Lord Fairfax Community College and will then
transfer to Old Dominion University because I want to earn a degree in
education and teach history and physical education,” Shawn said during the
interview before his deployment.
***
Shawn met Melissa Nicole Messick in 1997 at Pack’s Frozen Custard. The couple
fell in love, moved in together, and were married less than a year later.
The Hibbards live with their two children — Kayla, 5, and Colby, 2, in Bunker
Hill, W.Va.
Shawn was born in Nashville, Tenn., where he and his two brothers were living
with their parents when they separated.
“My mom and dad started having difficulties, and she took me and my brothers
and ran,” Shawn said. “We lived in about seven different states before we
came to the trailer park near Stephens City.”
Shawn started looking for his family in 1999 and found them.
His brother, Tommy Brandon, is in the Army military police in Alaska and has
traveled all over the world. His brother, Paul Brandon, who has cerebral palsy,
is living in a group home in Pennsylvania.
Shawn’s mom, Ethel Nicely, joined the Army after her kids were taken away.
After leaving the Army, she settled in Fayetteville, N.C.
Shawn’s father, Tommy Spoonemore, is in Oklahoma.
“My dad has really gotten his life together,” Shawn said.
Shawn has visited his parents and his brothers, and they have all visited him.
“My mother had kept my baby blanket and gave it to me,” Shawn said.
“I’ve given it to my daughter.”
***
Shawn is a sergeant in the Virginia Army National Guard’s 3rd Battalion, 116
Infantry Division. Since the war with Iraq began almost a year ago, Shawn has
served six months on active duty stationed at the National Guard Bureau in
Arlington.
Shawn was called back into active duty on Monday. He will spend several months
training in the United States, and then he will probably be deployed to the
Middle East.
“I’ll be gone this time for about 18 months,” Shawn said. “I’m
excited about being able to serve my country, but I feel a lot of emotion about
this one. I’ll miss my daughter’s first-grade year, and I’m going to miss
my kids and my wife dearly.”
Staff members at Timber Ridge said they will notice a void by Shawn’s
absence.
“We hate for him to be gone because he’s very dependable and very good with
the kids,” said Timber Ridge Principal Jennie Johnson.
John Lamanna, the school’s facility director, added: “He can relate very
effectively with troubled youth. He will absolutely have a job when he
returns.”
Shawn is proud of his accomplishments and harbors no ill will toward anyone.
“I have confronted my fears and demons and have won,” Shawn said. “I have
no resentments or regrets for anything that has happened to me because what I
went through made me what I am today.”
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
