A former engineering enthusiast chose the University of Southern Mississippi over Auburn, drawn by family ties rather than the stronger program. Building forts and Lego structures as a kid masked a deeper drive to support others and hold teams together, a pattern that eventually led away from engineering toward servant leadership.
What'd you dream of being when you grew up?
I always thought I'd be an engineer.
Really?
Yeah, yeah. I just like the idea of building stuff, you know, I like people dynamic. I was a little Lego kid, but then I would just take random stuff and build stuff out of, you know, spoons and forks and pots and pans and random, you know, this is not. Children don't necessarily do this as much, but every wooded area behind any house that we were associated with, we had a fort which we had four linoleum that we pulled out of somewhere, you know, and, and, and just we. I mean there's still some. I went behind my parents house, which is the house we grew up in, and there's. There's traces of that that still exists.
Really?
That's cool. That was so cool. And that's just what we did, you know. And there's woods on the other side of the neighborhood that we went. And we wouldn't. Our land, but we wouldn't build a fort there too, you know. And so I mean, just my grandma's house, everywhere we went that's just what we did. I was just thinking what kind of build, you know. And then as I, as I grew up and was playing organized sports, you know, I kind of always felt like I was the, it was my responsibility to be the glue to the team. You know, it's like, hey, I got to be the one that encourages people and people having bad days to be the one that kind of helps them have a better day now. You know, I didn't have a framework for that. It just felt, I just felt like I needed to do it. You know, if I ever got money for Christmas, I never, I never spent it on myself. I always, I always went and bought gifts for other people. I just always loved giving things and making people happy.
I give little gifts all the time out.
I just, I just don't. You know, I say all the time, I was like, you know, once, once you make enough money, the rest is not mine, you know, I mean the rest is, is for me to do whatever I feel led. Led to do. If somebody needs something, I want to be in a position where I can help. And so that I think anyway that I got on a tangent there, but I wanted to be an engineer. I like to build stuff, you know. I thought I would go to Auburn. Down here has a really good engineering school.
They have a really good, has a.
Really good engineering school. And so I kind of thought, I mean, I had a dorm picked out at Auburn. I was I was about to go there, and then I kind of pivoted last minute. And I grew up a Southern Miss fan. My parents went to Southern Miss and. And just said, you know, Southern Mississippi just feels like home.
Yeah. Yeah.
And so I didn't really know what I'd study coming here, but it just. It was kind of this feeling that's like, man, this just feels like where I need to be. Why? I couldn't tell you, you know, but, you know, you gotta. You gotta believe that somebody else. There's a.
There's a.
There's a guy upstairs that's pulling the strings and, you know, directing you where you need to go. Even when you're not sure.
You're always pulling the strings. Yeah. What does that say? I tried my way. God's way is better.
Yeah, that's right.
My way.
Yeah. We don't know it all. We don't know it all.
We don't know it. No. And that's where you have to have that faith and just, like, put it in the hands of him, you know, and that's okay.
You know? It. It doesn't mean that we're broken. It just means, hey, we're not there. We're not there yet.
If your restaurant only works because you work 80 hours a week, it doesn't work.
