Will Estes (Track & Field (Outdoor), Louisiana Tech University) grew up in Ruston. HelloNation asks student athletes one question about the place that raised them and records the answer on camera. This is Will Estes’s, in full.
The question
Tell a story about a moment when your hometown came together or achieved something that made you proud.
The answer, as recorded
Transcript. What follows is a transcript of the video above, in Will Estes’s own words. It has not been rewritten, and no part of it was drafted for them.
My hometown of Ruston, Louisiana has come together on quite a few special occasions. Come together, not angrily, not to be in divide, not to be in a group, but as one. We've all came together in order to help, in order to heal. For example, about seven, eight years ago, there was a tornado that swept through our town, destroyed so many different places. And we saw many different individuals in the city, the mayor, we saw Olympians, we saw everyone who has called this place a home come in and help rebuild from the destruction. You'd think an event that was so destructive, was so terrible, would have terrible consequences, but it helped have some great consequences. It brought people together. People such as these strong firefighters, people such as Mike and Jimmy, they came in and they helped rebuild. They helped to clean the football players for the football team. They came in and they cleaned cemeteries and they cleaned up these branches and these limbs that were brought upon our town during an awful day, an awful time, and turned it into one of unity. And I was very proud of that moment. I was proud of my hometown for coming together that way, and I know we can do it again in the future if anything like that happens again. Thank you.
Recorded by HelloNation as part of its athlete voices program and published by Hello Newswire, HelloNation’s good news newswire. The words are the speaker’s own.
Reported by Hello Newswire.