2015/05/15 – Javarcia Ivory has always been solution-oriented.

The 18-year-old Clinton student preparing to attend Stanford University on a full ride in the fall looks for solutions on both the small and large scale.

Ivory fought a lifetime battle with speech impediments, namely severe stuttering and mispronunciations of certain words. He worked with speech therapists since the time he was in pre-kindergarten, he says, recalling the woman who would take him away from the other children twice a week to work with him.

After years of underhanded comments by peers and sometimes saying “no” to social events he otherwise would have gone to, he signed up to take a public speaking elective in 9th grade.

“I won’t say I got through (the class) easily, it definitely wasn’t easy, but I got through with a respectable grade and a feeling of success I’ve never been able to recreate,” Ivory said of his experience in the class.

In 10th grade, he played one of two main actors in the comedy Greater Tuna at school. And in 11th grade, he joined a debate team.

All of these were choices. He didn’t have to put himself out there like that, but that’s how he lives his life.

Ivory, who made a 34 on the ACT and had his pick of 16 colleges, including big names like Duke, Yale and Brown, now speaks with the poise and articulation of someone much older than 18.

The student-athlete also has a plan to address larger societal issues. The plan earned him the Ron Brown scholarship this year, making him one of 28 students nationwide to receive the scholarship this year. He is one of only eight Mississippians to ever receive the award and will receive up to $40,000 over four years in scholarship money for college.

The award, named for the first African-American to hold the position of U.S. Secretary of Commerce, goes to talented high school seniors from low-income backgrounds who demonstrate an interest in public service, community engagement, business entrepreneurship and global citizenship.

At Stanford, Ivory will major in biophysics with a minor in Spanish in preparation to attend medical school, possibly in Mississippi. After graduate school, he will become a cardiologist and work in Jackson.

“I’ve seen the struggle of my Hispanic and African-American peers,” Ivory said, noting he wants to address the obesity, diabetes and heart disease that plague all Mississippians and those groups in particular.

Ivory learned about solutions and hard work from his mother and grandmother who raised him and his siblings.

One childhood memory he has is seeing his mother work at a restaurant in Clinton to support him and his four younger sisters. When he was sick and had to come home from school, she would take him to the restaurant and give him a hot tamale since he loved spicy food.

“I saw how she had to work to maintain a lifestyle for me and my sisters,” he described, recalling the jobs his mother has had at restaurants, Saks and later as a customer care representative at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

“She was an image of hard work. Going to school, I was always in a mindset that ‘My mom does this, my mom does that. I should do this, I should do that,'” he said.

He also recalls the shock he felt when he found out in 6th grade the man he thought was his father actually was not. It was the day before Mother’s Day when his grandmother sat him down to tell him the news.

But since then, his biological father has been a steady presence in his life, inspiring him to get involved with baseball, football and Tae Kwan Do. In his biography submitted to the Ron Brown program, he also credits his father with helping him become a more confident and mature person.

Ivory attributes his appreciation of and dedication to hard work to her and his grandmother, a pre-kindergarten teacher.

“I see any challenge and any struggle as an opportunity to improve upon something,” he continued. “That’s what my life has been.”

Source: The Clarion-Ledger 

Kate Royals