Support for LPB's 2023 Louisiana Young Heroes is provided by AmeriHealth, Caritas Louisiana.

The U.S. Army, Baton Rouge Recruiting Battalion, Community Coffee, and the East Baton Rouge Parish Library.

With additional support from Demco, Hotel Indigo and McDonald's.

Hello, I'm Kara St. Cyr, and for the past 28 years, Louisiana Public Broadcasting has selected an inspiring group of students to honor as Louisiana young heroes.

You're about to meet the six students from across our state who LPB is recognizing this year in a program that shines a light on their extraordinary achievements.

Each of these students is smart, committed to reaching their goals and mindful of the needs of others.

Some of them have overcome incredible adversities, and we here at LPB are grateful to be able to share these moving stories with you.

Thank you for joining us.

As we celebrate and honor LPB's 2023, Louisiana Young Heroes.

You only have so much time in the classroom.

These are precious moments you can't afford to miss paying attention is paramount, but it's also a luxury cadence Bradford didn't have.

Think about your mind going like 100 million miles per second.

And so you're like, Oh, look at this.

Look at this, Look at that.

Oh, crap.

I want to look and see.

Figure out how to spell a word.

It was very challenging because you're feeling yourself being pulled in this direction, in this direction while our head there's something in front of you.

Wow.

So, I mean, that must have been really difficult, especially at such a young age.

You said it was first grade.

Yes, it was in the first grade.

Kadence was diagnosed with ADHD when she was six, joining the more than 6 million other kids with this disorder.

The acronym means Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

And the symptoms are exactly what you might think, not being able to focus frequent outbursts of energy and fidgeting well at all.

I didn't notice it at all.

To me, it was just her.

She she liked to play around.

She liked to run around.

She liked to.

She liked to cartwheel.

She liked to jump up in the middle Walmart and start singing My Country Tis of Thee and get round in applause.

That was just her personality.

Well, how'd you find out?

Um, the first I found out from her first grade teacher, Ms.. Warren.

She put me on a side.

She said, don't, don't, don't freak out, because a lot of parents freak out when they hear this.

My son has it, so I think you should get her check on the reason I finally decided to say something to you is because Kate sit down on the floor in school.

It from what side of the room till I was at of all her.

But it was it was the school.

She was like that was the final thing.

And letting me know that that diagnosis didn't hold Cadence back.

She found the right treatment.

She went from A, B, C student to straight A's.

She's able to maintain so well.

She's an active member of five different academic and social extracurriculars.

She's a student council vice president at Liberty High School.

She's president of the Key Club.

She's a junior representative for the National Honor Society, an ambassador for student ambassadors and a biomedical chair of the Pink Week Committee.

She led a weeklong effort to bring awareness to breast cancer.

And we wanted to raise the money because wearing pink is great to bring awareness, But to bring actual change, you need action through the pink run.

Where we ran around the school, the teachers had on tutus, even the male teachers.

Hilarious to watch.

But we also had different sponsorships, including Trader Joe's.

She ended up raising $2,000 through her efforts in Ms. Debit.

She's an English teacher who is a survivor of breast cancer, and she almost cried at the end because she was like, you know, it's amazing to see just the younger generation actually trying to bring change.

This is only the tip of the iceberg for Kadence.

Did I mention she's also a student athlete, a volleyball player, to be specific.

My mom suggested volleyball because that was her her love.

That was what she loved.

So she was like, okay, just try it.

And it was that first ball when I passed it.

I mean, it was a pretty well, I'm looking back, it was a pretty it was a pretty ugly pass.

But that feeling I had when I just finally got the ball up, I was like, yes.

So just having that connection was actually when I was in the sixth grade.

So after that I was just full blown volleyball.

No matter what, no matter what I'm in, my academics will always come first.

Cadence plans to start college on the pre-med track.

Her goal is to become a pediatric orthopedic doctor.

Cadence is accomplished a lot more than most kids her age.

But if everything she's done and everything she will do, her mother says she's most proud of who her daughter's become.

I'm actually proud of her personality.

You know, education's good.

You know, her intelligence is good, but it's her personality and her her giving nature.

Like I say, everybody loves her.

Everybody that comes in contact loves her.

Everyone we go.

She has overcame so much still.

It's amazing.

We can't even go into all the details of what she has overcome, the things that she have saw.

They they like to call her the Southern University student, extra student because she literally was on campus with me all her life.

I just couldn't stop talking about this girl.

I'm just so, so proud of her.

I would put myself as someone who is always open to new things.

You know, I'm always open to the idea of trying new things, never trying to close anything out, you know?

And I'm just trying to be accepting of others as much as possible.

You know, these words are what 17 year old Kanan Huger lives by being open to trying new things, accepting others.

It's a mantra he's learned from being in challenging situations himself.

Once most kids will never experience.

And when Kanan was born, you know, he started having issues and he had to have four surgeries.

And, you know, he you know, he broke his femur and he was in a wheelchair for three months.

And it was so difficult, you know, just your heart strings.

And, of course, you know, as a parent, yes, your first thing is, yes, you hurt for them because you watch them going through it.

But then it's also, you know, you have a sense of pride and you watch them overcome.

These are just a few of Kenan's challenges.

He was diagnosed with a learning disorder at a young age and even battles with an autoimmune disease.

I'd say it gave me more awareness of others, you know, especially who may have disabilities or something of that nature.

I feel that I can relate to it more, you know, in really just offer insight more into them in how they live and, you know, the things that they may be dealing with as well.

It's this perspective that's motivated Kanan to pursue all he can life while making it easier for others along the way.

It may just be that simple, actually, if his plan is to help construct an outdoor classroom at Buckeye High School, the goal is to get kids to learn about the outdoors while being fully immersed in it.

So where those two tree lines meet, they're in the back.

It's tucked all the way back there.

And so it's out in the woods, pretty much.

Yes, ma'am.

We're going to educate children about the their effects on the environment, what they can do to conserve it and just to learn about it in general.

But is this something your mom also helped with is something that we both had kind of had the idea together and we kind of got the ball rolling on that and excited?

Absolutely.

I love the outdoors.

I live for the outdoors.

He also has a passion for fashion, kind of.

He's a volunteer for the Cinderella closet.

What we do is we prom obviously at every high school.

And for girls that don't have the ability to buy a dress or, you know, may not be in that situation, we actually take donations that they can go in and have access to a bunch of dresses.

Even besides dresses, stuff like shoes for anybody to wear, you know, I mean, it's like entire outfits.

You can get yourself here.

But how many dresses do you think you have in there?

Hundreds.

It's it would definitely have to be in an estimation, for sure.

But it is hundreds.

Like you said, my mom usually helps with the dress for us.

I try to get some of the accessories because she knows the dresses better than I do.

Have good taste.

I try my best too, but I've been told different, so.

Oh really?

If the Cinderella closet sounds familiar, that's because it is and isn't the first.

Who's your young hero?

His brother Gabe took the title last year, in part for his work alongside Kanan and their mother, giving girls an opportunity to go to prom.

Once Gabe graduated, Kanan kind of stepped into that role as the National Honor Society president.

And now we have 260 dresses that are formals of all shapes and sizes.

And the community has been great in opening up and like they know that that's a need.

And we love the name Cinderella's Closet because it lets the kids feel like for a day they can be Cinderella.

When Kanan isn't building an outdoor classroom, we're organizing the Cinderella closet you can find in powerlifting or leading Earth Love, an environmental outreach organization that he co-founded.

You can also find him leading the National Honor Society at his school.

What do you think is the most important extracurricular that you have?

Um, I would say probably directly National Honor Society.

I just say because that club alone really gives you the greatest opportunity to go out and help others.

Kanan has some time before he goes off to college.

He's still a junior, but he has his eyes set on biology at LSU so he can continue to serve the community that he loves.

Homeland security is a concern the average child won't have to worry about.

It affects 2.1 million children each year.

But it was Lindsay McKinney's reality for a bit of her childhood.

It made me feel less of a person.

It made me feel like I was never able to accomplish everything, made me feel like I don't know.

It just made me so different from everyone else.

Homelessness was an unexpected roadblock in Lindsay's life.

She was born in Chicago and lived there with her grandparents up until her fifth grade year.

That's when tragedy struck, as in Chicago.

It's like I had everything.

But once I lost my grandparents, it was just me and my mom.

We had to deal with financial burnout, and it was hard on the both of us, especially because I was just getting out of like Grammer's school and I had to go to middle school in Baton Rouge.

Lindsay and her mom stayed with family members and in shelters.

The imbalance of her life sought to take a toll on her mental health.

It was when I would go to school, All my friends like they would have somewhere to go but like, leave school.

Like it would just be me and my mom and we would have to struggle with trying to find somewhere to go.

So it was hard trying to deal with that.

But the imbalance was temporary.

Eventually, her mom would find work with the state of Louisiana and things would slowly begin to turn around.

The home and security that was originally a source of shame became a motivation.

A motivation to do well and work hard, but also to volunteer.

In the beginning, I was embarrassed about it.

I was afraid that other people would think of me differently or judging me.

But in reality, it just shows how much I am and that I'm strong enough that I can get through challenges and I can overcome challenges.

Lindsay became more involved in several after school activities that required giving back to the community.

She volunteered at the Baton Rouge Food Bank, where she helped give away water to the less fortunate.

She's volunteered at Our Lady of the Lake Children's Hospital and helped clean up the Sweet Olive Cemetery.

I went to the children's Hospital here in Louisiana, in Baton Rouge, and for Christmas I organized different toys for the sick kids who weren't able to go home to their families for Christmas.

Also, some of the things that I did my freshman year was I cleaned out the graveyard at Sweet Olive Graveyard, and I just made it prettier.

Of course, these are just a few of her accomplishments.

She's done much more.

She's a member of the Beta Club, treasurer of the student Council and Student of the Year at Franciscan High School.

The faculty have taken notice.

You know, Lindsay is an impressive young lady.

You know, she she kind of racks up these accolades and is real, real steady in her demeanor.

You know, she kind of carries herself with a little bit of a confidence and put yourself out there.

And so to see that she's been rewarded or been awarded is, you know, no surprise, becoming a Louisiana young hero was just the icing on the cake.

And you feel good because, like I was one out of I guess it's seven people in the entire state.

So I feel like what I was what I was going to say was going to impact other people.

Lindsay plans to study at LSU, majoring in finance.

But more than anything, she hopes to inspire other kids who've been in her shoes.

I want to say that even though I have went through this and is very vulnerable, I feel like what I'm saying right now is powerful and I hope that encourages other people and gives people hope when we're in the same situation.

I am.

And also want to say that you're worth it.

You're invaluable.

And don't ever think that you're less because of a situation that during.

Come on, man.

Come on, Sit up.

Come on.

And even then, a lot of.

I have a lot of disabilities.

I'm able to be success, soar and thrive in school and thrive in my life.

Looking at Nicholas Tarver, you can likely see the signs of his disability.

He walks with a cane and sometimes needs an aide to read and write.

He's also blind and epileptic.

There's nothing.

But what most can't see is his sheer determination to live life to the fullest.

Allison just told me that he stayed outside of his hospital room for I did.

I was scared.

If I left that they would know that he was supposed to stay around and be with us.

So I spent the night a couple of nights at the hospital in the waiting room so that he would have comfort.

His handicap is not a handicap.

He just walks around it.

His grades at school.

Awesome.

But nobody knows how many hours he puts in practicing and learning and reviewing everything.

So I guess I don't know what I could say I'm most proud of, except maybe it's just his attitude about life out here on his family's farm.

He's a rancher, an athlete, and a role model, a normal 17 year old.

But it was an uphill battle to get here.

My right arm and right legs can be tight.

I get around with my cane sometimes and I'm wheelchair to get around basically with my action trike, cane, wheelchair.

It's any thing that I can.

He's actually a miracle, baby.

He was not supposed to survive the night.

And if he did survive 24 hours, it was going to be substantial mental disabilities.

So we were faced with that, which was, of course, for new parents.

Heartbreaking.

But as as we went through it, we realized that he was actually quite phenomenal.

Nicholas has cerebral palsy, which is a neurological disorder that affects muscles and motor skills.

Sometimes it creates counter issues like blindness and epilepsy.

It's a rare disease that affects only 2 to 3 babies out of a thousand.

Took me a little longer to come to grips with what what that meant and and fully understand it.

So I would say I was probably two years easy understanding the limits there when we put on on Nicholas.

His limitations make everyday life harder.

And my youngest son is 12, and he gets up at seven.

I mean, 640 for us to be out of the door for 7:00.

And Nicholas gets up at six, but Nicholas gets up at six and he can brush his teeth, wash his face, he dresses himself.

You know, he can do everything that he does.

It just may take him 45 minutes instead of ten like my youngest son does.

And yet here he is beating the odds.

Nicholas works around his limitations that were accepted for publication to the over 30 societies that submitted their.

Alison and Nicholas learned Braille.

He uses it to do his homework.

He writes essays, even speeches, and have a voice in this great organization.

He's a part of several organizations that rely on his knowledge and expertise to function as president of the children of the American Revolution.

Nicholas was awarded by the lieutenant governor for his dedication to preserving history at Fort Jessup.

When I was state president.

So my project was by no means like and I wanted to, I guess, bring awareness to No Man's Land and for the people to be to know about no man's land.

Lieutenant Governor gave me this award from, again, my outstanding work on No man's land in my state project as President.

He's treasurer of the Future Farmers of America, where he proved that kids with disabilities can still make a difference in agriculture.

But why stop there?

He's also an athlete.

Nicholas is a proud participant in the gumbo games or games uniting mind and body.

So I throw the javelin shot put in discus.

I've qualified and moved United Junior Nationals, which will which was held in Denver, Colorado last year.

I was actually national champion and all three.

Awesome.

And then I qualified in the javelin and shot put.

So far for this year's move, you're not in competition.

Held in Hoover, Alabama.

That'll be in July of this year.

Nicholas is living a fulfilling life.

He's accomplished more than I can list.

He's happy.

His family is proud.

If there are young heroes worth celebrating, Nicholas is definitely one of them.

Kelsey Tillage is an ace student, a tutor and a published author with all of her accomplishments.

It's hard to imagine that this reality seemed impossible at one point when she scanned the page.

You know, you read from left to right.

She was reading up, down, sideways, backwards.

And it wasn't dyslexia.

So it was kind of really hard to pinpoint.

But she was not reading.

So as ironic as it is, while I do have a good memory, I didn't know I had like a problem.

It was never like, known an issue.

Probably good enough to understand that, hey, I'm reading behind or Hey, I can't do this.

She was also struggling to speak.

Her mom says the vocabulary was there.

The words just wouldn't come.

Like I say, it was just more of an enunciation.

Sometimes you wouldn't hear it.

We didn't quite understand it.

She would get words mixed up.

Kelsey's teachers were worried that she'd never catch up when she was five years old.

They wanted to hold her back, and that's when I was like, okay, The light bulb went out.

My head like, Mom, you got to activate.

At the time, Kelsey's parents didn't know it, but she was struggling with ADHD.

For some kids with this disorder, speaking in articulation can be a struggle.

Reading is also difficult because the child can't focus on the page.

That's what it was like for Kelsey.

From my perspective, it was like, I think more so with ADHD.

It was kind of hard just to stay focused on one thing.

Like, I would kind of pay attention.

Then I would look off to the side or look at this in the back of my head.

I'm thinking about what I'm going to have for breakfast or dinner or whatever time of the day.

But that was kind of it was always like whenever there's a word on the page, I pay attention to everything but the word.

But this wasn't the end of the road.

In fact, it was just the beginning of a years long effort to not only learn to read, but to master it.

When they tested her five years old, she was behind the scale.

But then once they tested her in fifth grade, she was above the scale and she just fell in love with reading.

It's one of the things that we foster was, I don't care what you're reading, read and her and her choice of books were just all over the spectrum.

The books that I wanted her to read, she didn't want to read those.

But as long as she was reading, you know, we were really, really excited about that because she discovered it so early and it took her to places that, you know, that normal children are children that aren't as exposed and aren't reading shouldn't say normal, that they don't get that opportunity to expand outside of their environment.

Kelsey's parents were able to improve her reading with years of practice, but with that came a love of literature that would follow her for the rest of her life.

She tutors elementary school students who struggle with reading.

It's personal for her.

Tutoring the kids just started gradually.

I was like, as I was like younger, like teachers to be like, Oh, Kelsey, help Such and such.

Hey, Kelsey, can you do this, this and that?

Because I would already I was so far it a girl that I would already know this stuff.

And I was able to kind of teach it and reiterate back.

I think the only person I can't teach is my little brother.

She runs book drives.

She's pushed her school to donate more than 1700 books to the center of literacy.

She's also earned the gold Medal Congressional Awards in the U.S. Congress.

And if that weren't enough to convince you of Kelsey's dedication to literature, she's also a published author.

It's the Unpopular Opinions anthology, because we all have something to say.

Her book is a series of essays written by students expressing themselves and their opinions.

And I feel like in my generation, we just don't open our minds any more up.

We're so very headstrong, which is a good thing.

But at the same time, it also has drawbacks.

Her life is just beginning.

She's got college to look forward to in her major, of course, has something to do with reading and research.

But I did do a research study on black women and how a generational trauma affects how they view their body now.

And it kind of falls under their arm.

But anthropology is just like this study of people and more so, my specific section is culture anthropology, not archeology of everything Kelsey's done and of all the things she will do.

Her parents say they're the proudest of her character.

One of the things that just always brings me extreme joy is when I see my daughter walk through the the school and the little kids, they run up to her and hugging her.

But not only that, she takes time, but she knows your name.

You know, Everyone's like, Hi, Kelsey.

And she's like, How I got hired.

She kind of goes back like that.

So that's when things really tough.

I went to this school, so I know what it's like to be a savior and not to want to be annoyed by kids and what have you, but you just don't see that with her.

Giving caring and thoughtful child that would be what I would really want to get out there.

Everything else, you know, it's on display.

Her intelligence with rewards and giving back.

But the main thing that I really, really want to get across is the fact that she is just loving and giving.

Same sentiment that's above it.

Like she's very authentic.

And I think that's through this whole venture that has really captured a lot of attention, that she's very authentic to everything that she has experienced, fearless and amazing.

Those are the words Mommy Web used to describe her daughter, Vivian.

But when asked how she sees herself, the answer was much different.

I'm not fearless at all.

But when you think about the challenges stacked against her, it's hard to see her as anything else.

They were 34 white triplets, and she's the youngest of the three of them.

And her brother was diagnosed when he was almost six.

Took about a year and everybody ended up having autism.

So that's when we first found out.

Now she and her brother or or is or they have Asperger's and of things, for lack of a better way to put it.

Most people don't acknowledge that part of it is all autism now under the new DSM.

But that's when they found out it was right around the time of the ninth birthday when they lost their exceptionality in school.

Asperger's is a developmental disability on the autism spectrum.

It causes difficulty with communication and understanding social cues.

Non-verbal kids are a lot more at risk because they can't communicate these things with other kids or with their parents.

And so I think that parents just wanted cameras in the classroom to make sure these things weren't happening to their kids.

And if it was that, they could put a stop to it.

Vivian also has epilepsy, which contributes to her anxiety.

Her mom says all of her limitations are intertwined.

The anxiety is probably always been there, but she didn't have a name for it or know that's what it was or how to describe it.

Because when you have autism, you don't necessarily you have emotions, you have lots of emotions.

You don't necessarily understand how to identify the emotions.

So you have no way to convey what you're feeling or what's happening to you.

It's kind of tough because because of my autism, I get overstimulated more easily and more overwhelmed easily.

But if I get overwhelmed, I get more anxious because I want to stop feeling overwhelmed.

But then that makes me more anxious.

If I can't calm down on my own because I don't want to be a burden to others or face more problems with reaching out.

Because like I was saying earlier, it's people are hard.

But don't be fooled by Vivian's limitations.

I only tell you these things so you can understand how truly amazing she is.

She's proven that her disabilities aren't a barrier.

In fact, they're a driver for her advocacy.

She's always sticking up for the little guy because she knows what it's like to be one or she's there with them.

Brother Vivian's a member of the Louisiana Developmental Disability Council's Advocacy Network.

Well, we can for short.

She's gone to the capital to advocate and helped fund $2 million for the Human Services District.

She's also helped enact policy that would put cameras in special education classrooms.

This issue is particularly personal.

When I was in second grade, there was a boy who had behavioral problems.

He once threw chairs like a chair across a classroom, and it almost hit my brother in the head every day.

He would come in like doing this with his hands.

And my brothers seriously thought he was going to shoot him.

Another time in like kindergarten, there was a kid who would use my brother's Xbox and like, just annoy him to annoy him and set him off.

And any time I went, Hey, can you do something about this?

The teacher instead would punish me for speaking up.

Vivian was awarded the Billy Michael Award in 2021 for her volunteerism and advocacy.

In the future, Vivian plans to continue her work as an advocate for people with disabilities.

She plans to finish out high school.

Then it's off to a seminary college for a degree in Fine Arts, and she is thought to be here for them from the very beginning, quite literally, since conception.

So she fights her way through life and she does a big job of it, and I'm very proud of that.

We were delighted to recognize the 2023 young heroes on Louisiana Young Heroes Day in April.

The day was filled with special activities and recognition, and we thank everyone involved for making this occasion possible.

Thank you again for joining us.

For LPB, I█m Kara St. Cyr.

Support for LPB's 2023 Louisiana Young Heroes is provided by AmeriHealth Caritas Louisiana.

The U.S. Army Baton Rouge Recruiting Battalion, Community Coffee, and the East Baton Rouge Parish Library.

With additional support from Demco, Hotel Indigo and McDonald's.