Bryant Browning is a 2006 Watkins Award Honoree from Cleveland Ohio.  He attended the football powerhouse Glenville High School.  Bryant was truly an Academic All-American as he was the valedictorian and senior class president.  After an outstanding high school career, Bryant signed a football scholarship with The Ohio State University.  Bryant graduated with a degree in business and had the opportunity to play in the NFL.  Bryant is now a successful entrepreneur in Columbus, Ohio serving the best BBQ in town at The Pit BBQ Grille.        

Cariol Holloman Horne of Buffalo, New York, is known for breaking the blue wall of silence -- the informal rule among police officers in the U.S. which prohibits them from reporting on a colleague’s misconducts, errors and crimes.

 

Horne was a police officer in Buffalo, where she was born and raised. On November 1, 2006, she stopped her fellow Buffalo Police Department officer Gregory Kwiatkowski from choking a handcuffed arrestee, an African-American man named Neal Mack.

The action that Officer Horne took, which she was later vilified for, may have in fact saved the life of Neal Mack. In the wake of the conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, the question becomes whether similar actions would have saved his life.

 

Responding to a domestic dispute, and intervening to protect the suspect, Horne was charged with obstruction, sued by her fellow officer and later fired two months before her retirement, which resulted in the loss of her pension. Since Horne’s firing, she has become an outspoken activist against police brutality.

 

Cariol is a single mother of five children. She received the Harriet Tubman Award from the Erie County Legislature and was named Person of the Year by WUFO Radio. She received the Shero Award for Excellence in Community Service from the Los Angeles Urban Police Roundtable and was named UMOJA's Woman of the Year.

Named after her, the legislation called Cariol’s Law was signed into law in October 2020. The New York State Supreme Court reinstated her pension and ordered back pay on April 13, 2021.

April Humphrey is Vice Chair of the Yarmouth Town Council and is serving in her second term as a Town Councilor.  She has lived in Yarmouth with her family for 8 years and works as an early childhood educator. 

Patrick Neville is an American politician and a member of the Colorado House of Representatives from the 45th District, which includes much of Douglas County. A Republican, Neville currently serves as the Minority Leader of the House, having been elected to this position at the beginning of his second term in January 2017.

Dr. Kimberly McGeorge is an internationally renowned naturopathic doctor, energy healer, remote viewer, paranormal expert, and consciousness teacher. Her extensive client list includes the world’s most talented healers and, for the past 25 years, she has worked on thousands of people globally. Dr. Kimberly was born with the ability to remote view, see people's auras and was highly intuitive. While still in college, she helped police on many occasions. Finding she had a natural affinity with herbs, she worked as an herbalist and went on to create and distribute her own line of herbal organic products internationally. During this time, her personal practice expanded to multiple clinics throughout Columbus. Driven by an inner knowing that her healing work could be made quicker, more affordable, and amplified using technology, Dr. Kimberly consulted with an esteemed neurosurgeon to create naturopathic healing frequencies. Her ground-breaking program Frequency Master™ teaches how to master frequencies in your life, while it trains healers to use her own unique and successful methods.

Michaela S. Cox is a six time published author. Her books include Heartfelt Meditations: A Collection of Poetry Inspired by Cherished Scriptures, books on motherhood in her Take a Sip, Take a Breath and Go… series and most recently, on her faith in Scripture, Spirituality and Our Culture series. Michaela’s third series is entitled Before the Clock Strikes Midnight. Michaela has also been published in Light and Life. She is an author who writes about her heartfelt meditations related to her passions about her journey as a mother, her journey of faith and the American journey of We the People.

Since the publication of her first book, Michaela has been learning, growing and journeying through her own journey through motherhood and faith. It was her own journey through motherhood that inspired her motherhood series of books. In the future Michaela plans to start and introduce two new series over the next several months related to We the People, and her own personal experiences has she has traveled here own life’s journey as a woman of faith who has dealt with a life-long disability, and the new struggles of life as a widow and solo mama.

I am a stroke (major neurological event) survivor, they still do not know exactly what happened or why. This “event” put me in bed for 7 years (5 full time), I was told that I would never walk or talk properly, and I would never work again.

I no longer recognized the woman looking back at me in the mirror, not body, mind, heart, or soul. I was already struggling before this happened, I suffer from constant chronic pain from bone and joint issues and fibromyalgia, chronic headaches, and bipolar, all of which were magnified during this. The weight gain from being in bed all those years did not help things either, I was over 300 lbs.

I will wholeheartedly admit that for a while I resigned myself to the idea that I would never really do anything ever again. My brain and my body were now my enemies. My goals, my dreams… were never going to happen.

Due to my past, I already considered myself a survivor, a warrior; my mantra was that nothing could keep me down for long. I refused to let this be any different…

I started studying nutrition for healing from my bed, I became obsessed with what I needed to eat to heal my brain and my body. And so, after about 5 years in bed full time, my journey (my fight) back to me began…

I changed the way I thought about food completely and I changed my diet to heal, including vitamin-packed smoothies every morning.

One day, while researching, I came across an ad (thank you Google!!) for a “superfoods” shake, it had so much of what I was trying to get into my body to heal and so much more at a fraction of the cost of what I was spending on my morning smoothie routine. The “superfoods” shakes were part of a complete health & fitness program that also came with an option of having a health & fitness coaching business; it was exactly what I needed at the time.

I will never say that the shakes were a miracle cure, I am not cured however, I do think that they saved me. The vitamins, the minerals, the nutrients, the superfoods… they fed my brain and body what was necessary to start the healing process, gave me energy, and cut down how much food my body needed. The program also included a ton of information on nutrition and eating right.

I could not do the fitness part of the program in the beginning, but I did have them playing on my TV 24/7, to inspire me. In my first months in this program, I would get up to go to the bathroom and do 30 seconds of the workout video, on my way back to bed I did another 30 seconds... and then I dropped into my bed exhausted and in pain. In year two I was averaging 2-5 minutes at a time a few more times a day.

As part of my healthy new life goals, I decided that I wanted a garden and as I transitioned from year two to year three of my journey, I made it happen. Everyone told me to start small, a few beds; I never do anything small and my garden that year was 14 raised beds. I brought everything I needed in by the bag and mixed the soil by hand, planted, weeded, and harvested mostly by myself; it was painstaking, and I paid for it, but it was so worth it. The next year I added another 13 beds to my garden for a total of 27.

It was during this time that my financial situation changed, I could no longer afford my shakes. I did not have the self-esteem, confidence, or results I needed to be a successful health and fitness coach and I left the company. I did still have my workout programs and my nutrition plan but I was still in bed the majority of this time.



The next year my youngest daughter got a job in a factory that made car parts, she called me on her break the first day and said “Mom, they have free coffee!”. My response “I am in!”. I was frustrated with everything in my life; I was barely surviving financially, I decided that even though I was still having issues walking (when this all started I could only do about 20 steps) and still having cognitive issues, that I could not live like this anymore. I was going back to work.

And so, I went to work at a factory making car parts, on my feet 8 hours a day in heavy work boots on concrete floors; averaging 15,000 steps a day, 6 or 7 days a week. By the time I got home most days, I fell into my bed sobbing in agony; I was pushing myself way past my limits every single day.

Now in year 7 of my journey (my fight) back to me, I would love to say that I am healed, no longer suffering from pain or any lasting effects of the stroke, but I cannot. I am still in constant pain and I still have cognitive issues including memory and learning issues. I also started having idiopathic seizures in the last year.

However…

I am now back with the company that kick-started this journey into high gear for me, back on my “superfoods” shakes, working out daily, using my determination, passion, and the tools and programs I used, to coach other women and help them achieve their health and fitness goals. The obvious signs of what I have been through are not apparent, most of the time you cannot even tell I am in pain.

The most amazing part of all of this is that in my strength and determination I have found my true calling in life and I am working towards transitioning into “whole” life coaching. I love helping women go after and reach their health and fitness goals but so much of the time, as I found out with myself, there are often much deeper limitations to not being able to reach goals. For me, it was 75% mindset, 20% nutrition, and 5% fitness. I want to change mindsets and impact the lives of women on whole other levels. Through my adversity, I have found my strengths, my passion, my purpose.