Friday, December 19, 2008
PRCC student keeps on going despite paralysis

     HATTIESBURG - Jesse Gable doesn’t quite understand why some people look at him as an inspiration.
A 2006 traffic accident paralyzed his legs but didn’t change what he expects of himself.
      "To me, the way I was raised, there was no other alternative but to get back up and keep on going," he said.
      Gable, 21, had finished his first year of college at West Alabama University and was spending the summer with family in Hattiesburg and working for South Mississippi Electric Power Association when he was injured. About a year of recovery and therapy followed.
      "I wanted to start back off in college but I wanted to start kind of slow," he said. He enrolled in basic academic courses at Pearl River Community College’s Forrest County Center.
      "When I first started college, I was pre-law, but it didn’t take but a year of that to know that wasn’t it," he said. Like many of his fellow students, Gable has changed majors several times.
      He enrolled in the electronics technology program this fall.
      "I’m definitely going to finish this," he said. "I know I want to get more than an associate’s degree, but I don’t know what. I think I’ve had 90 something credit hours of college, and I still don’t know."
      Advisor Deborah Hewitt met Gable when he enrolled at PRCC more than a year ago.
      "I’ve been impressed with Jesse because, despite his challenging disability, he continutes to inspire the faculty, staff and his fellow students with his positive attitude," she said. "Jesse also gives back to the community by working with other young people with disabilities ... he sincerely cares about them and the daily struggles they face."
      Gable lives in Hattiesburg with his mother, a travel nurse who’s away more than she’s home. He says he’s pretty much self-sufficient and drives a Chevy Yukon adapted with hand controls.
      "It took me about a year," he said. "Once I got to be able to drive myself, it was pretty easy."
      Besides his classes at PRCC, Gable works with the Institute for Disability Studies Youth Advisory Council and TRIAD (Training, Resources and Information for the Advancement of Degrees) at the University of Southern Mississippi. He represented the council at a national conference in Washington, D.C., in July and is working to increase the availability of wheelchair sports in the Hattiesburg area.
      He played wheelchair rugby with a team based in Jackson for a time but gave it up because of the travel distance.
      "I still like to be involved in sports, but I want to coach," he said.
      Gable played high school football at Coosa Valley Academy in Harpersville, Ala., west of Talladega, and rode bulls on the West Alabama University rodeo team. He says lessons learned through sports contribute to his outlook today.
      "I’m not saying it’s always been easy, but playing football and stuff, when you’ve always had it put in your head that you don’t quit, the values my mother put into me - that’s how we were taught to live," he said. "You keep living ‘til it’s done."
      Through the Youth Advisory Council, he wants to help others with disabilities make the transition from high school to college.
      "It kind of throws me for a loop when people think it’s inspirational for me to come back to college," Gable said. "To me, there wasn’t an alternative."