Students of distinction

It has been eight years since a head-on traffic collision left Kevin Brady with permanent physical disabilities.

It's been nearly that long since Brady, 40, a seventh-grade dropout, decided to make a new life for himself in spite of his limitations.

Brady doesn't like to dwell on the shortcomings of the past - he says there is plenty of evidence of his self-described lawlessness and addictions to read about in the archives of the local paper.

That was then, he says, and Brady's graduation, followed by a deep drag on a Cuban stogie, is now.

Brady and two other graduates from Sierra College's Nevada County campus were selected by college President Kevin Ramirez for special recognition of their achievements in overcoming life struggles in pursuit of a higher education. In graduating Thursday, two other 40-year-olds, Donna Malone of Alta Sierra and Cathleen Patterson of Nevada City, were selected by Ramirez and Sierra College staff for their achievements at the Nevada County Campus.

Brady doesn't remember much about the 1996 crash near the Uren Street offramp and the Golden Center Freeway that left him in a coma for two weeks and ruined the use of much of the right side of his body. He doesn't even remember the date and barely has any recollection of the details, except that he was driving back from the Five Mile House when he struck a car head-on.

It's what he did after leaving the hospital that he'll never forget.

There was a time, Brady said, when he figured he'd simply live out his days on the public dole, watching re-runs of "I Love Lucy" and struggling to eat or write with the now-limited use of his right hand.

Then, four years ago, Brady tore up the script to his life and started with a clean sheet. After battling some demons, which he's reluctant to reveal even now, Brady decided to re-invent himself, figuring now was as good a time as any.

"It's unbelievable to me," he said Thursday, puffing on a cigar in the front yard of his Colfax Avenue home hours before graduation. "I never thought, as a 40-year-old man who is disabled, that I could do so well and move to the point that I would be a productive member of society. I thought it would all be a wash."

Now Brady, armed with an associate's degree, is off to Chico State to pursue a degree in construction management.

Along the way, Brady had to learn how to write again, how to walk, and, for a guy accustomed to using his hands in the building trade his father started, how to use his head to make the buildings take shape.

Brady has become skilled to the point that he wants to become an architect, mapping and plotting the American dream using specialized computer-assisted drafting models.

"I don't give up easily in life," said Brady, who credited his father, Tim, and his extended family for believing in him. "I've been able to reinvent myself, and now, I'm gonna make it."

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Dad would be proud.

This much Donna Malone knows is true, even if Bobby Smith wasn't there to congratulate his daughter on her graduation Thursday.

But it's the memory of her father, who died in December 2002 at age 59, that helped Donna Malone pursue her dream of being a teacher.

Dad was a masonry worker for years, and when Donna was a teen, she'd be there, laying the brick side-by-side next to him. Her reasoning, Donna Malone said, was simple:

"He told me, 'I want to teach you everything, as much as I can, so you don't have to depend on a man to do it for you,'" she said. "He told me to take pride in doing things for myself."

She's doing just that right now, raising three children on her own while going to school and working full time for JDK Controls, where she's a one-woman maintenance crew, responsible for maintaining the electrical, heating and air conditioning, plumbing and irrigation systems.

And she wants to be a teacher, a goal she's aspired to since the third grade.

She's planning to enroll at Chico State in the fall to pursue her career, primarily because she believes parents need help in educating and raising their children, in much the same way her parents did, she said, never judging them for their mistakes or growing pains.

"I'm excited and sad at the same time," she said. "I tell my mom (Betty) that I bet she never expected someone to graduate this late in life."

Dad will be watching as his daughter's career unfolds, Malone said.

"He was a man of very limited words, but of big actions," she said. "If he were here, he'd have a big grin on his face."

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It was a ploy, Cathleen Patterson admits, to encourage her oldest son to pursue a college degree.

Nearly four years ago, Patterson enrolled in Sierra College in the hopes that her son, Robert, 23, might follow suit.

What Cathleen Patterson discovered during her English and administration of justice classes, even as her son's college career ended soon after it began, was that school was her calling.

"I always loved school," she said. "You have to go, so you may as well make the best of it."

Patterson loves school so much that she's rarely away from the halls of the Nevada County campus, working at the admissions office and the bookstore. In the summer, she will be working in the financial aid office and disabled student services.

She also took 20 units this past semester, and carries a 3.6 grade-point-average.

"It's better than I ever imagined," she said.

In the fall, where Patterson will enroll at Chico State as a senior, she'll be studying education. Her goal is to teach fifth or sixth grade.

Where she'll once again be in a classroom, right where she belongs.

"It's like candy," she said. "It's great. I live and breathe school."