Drums roll. Cheerleaders shake pompoms. The dance line struts its stuff.
High school pep rallies in Alabama dot the autumn landscape like falling leaves this time of year, but this Oct. 13 pep rally at Hewitt-Trussville High School was different. The dominant color was peony pink — a hue no self-respecting football team would wear. And the human garden of pink T-shirts hoped not for a gridiron victory but for a cure for cancer.
The school and the city of Trussville “turned pink” for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and specifically for the Joshua White Research Fund at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), which has raised about $40,000 for breast cancer research since it was created in 2001.
White, an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Alabama (UA), set up the fund when he was 9 years old with the help of his father, Audie, who worked at UAB.His reason was personal — doctors had diagnosed his mother, Kathy, with breast cancer.
While a student at Hewitt-Trussville High, he launched the unusual pep rally theme.
“Some of my teachers and mothers of students, as well as my mother, were fighting breast cancer,” White said. “I wanted them to know that we cared about them and were praying for them.”
During the Turn Hewitt Pink campaign, students bought T-shirts, pink bows and other items to benefit the fund.
Not satisfied with confining the campaign to just the school, White made it a citywide effort in 2008 with the backing of businesses, the chamber of commerce, civic groups, churches and community leaders.
The effort has come a long way since he began his journey to further cancer research more than eight years ago. When his mother’s diagnosis came, White prayed that God would lead him to do something about her cancer.
“I already had developed some juggling skills,” he said. “So my parents bought some equipment, and we traveled all over the Southeast on weekends.
“It was a family mission, because my sister Shayna was also a team member. Over six years, we visited about 100 churches, combining our testimony for Christ with my juggling act.”
These performances served as fund-raisers for the research fund.
By the time White entered high school, his mother’s cancer was in remission and all seemed well with the world.
But life sometimes takes strange and tragic twists. In 2007, White’s father was diagnosed with brain cancer.
“My father’s favorite Bible verse had always been Romans 8:28,” he said. “That’s the verse that says, ‘All things work together for good to them that love God.’ I really believe that as Christians, we need to build others up and that good things can come from bad situations.”
Like the Joshua of the Old Testament, White has a deep faith to sustain him and a gift for leadership to guide him. He grew up in Roebuck Park Baptist Church, near Birmingham (now NorthPark Baptist Church, Trussville), serving as a 5-year-old usher alongside his father, being baptized at age 8 and playing guitar in the youth band as a teen.
This past April, Audie White died, leaving a son who has continued his legacy of faith.
“One feature that stands out about Joshua is his humility,” said Bill Wilks, pastor of NorthPark Baptist. “He is very much like his father in that respect.”
This is the same trait that set Joshua White apart last year when he competed for top scholarships at UA. Of 500 outstanding students invited to apply to be University Fellows, 50 traveled to Tuscaloosa for a weekend of personal interviews.
Joshua White did more than survive this winnowing. He won UA’s top grant for incoming freshmen — the Vulcan Materials Scholarship, which includes full four-year expenses, plus a semester of study abroad.
“We were seeking a student who has a real passion to make a difference and understands what it takes to make a difference,” said Jacqueline Morgan, associate dean of the Honors College at UA. “Joshua is an extraordinary young man who has the ability to see a need and back it up with commitment. At the same time, he has a deep sense of humility, which was one thing we were looking for. We didn’t want to select someone who thought they already had all the answers.”
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