Jack County STOMP brings Harmon to speak to county students

Jack County STOMP brought professional speaker Nathan Harmon to present to students from all three Jack County districts last week.

Harmon said he grew up in Indiana, where he was an all A student until his parents divorced.

“At 23, with all of my struggles and all of my pains and my life spiraling out of control, I was also responsible on July 17, 2009 when I got behind the wheel of that vehicle,” Harmon said. “My friend Priscilla came to pick me up, she came to be my designated driver (…) for some reason I got her keys and 24 hours my friend, Priscilla Owens, she was gone.”

He said he was sentenced to 15 years by the state of Indiana. However, her family gave him forgiveness, but asked him to not let their daughter die for nothing and to make the world a better place.

“Today, I want to share what I call ‘the five.’ The five, are the five habits in my heart and my mind that’s changed my life,” Harmon said. “The five are the five habits in my heart and my mind that help balance me.”

He said those five things are transparency, accountability, hard work, make good choices and validate people.

“Transparency and accountability has changed my life,” Harmon said. “I stopped caring about what you thought about me, but then that led me into the last three, hard work, make good choices and validate people. In my own personal situation while I was locked up as I was working on my attitude, my behavior and all these characteristics, Indiana, my prison, they wanted to start a program and they wanted to take an inmate and let him travel the state of Indiana and communicate.”

He said he was picked to be that inmate and he traveled the state for two years.

“The Governor of Indiana at the time, Governor Pence, which happens to be Vice President today, him and his team, they heard about what I was doing and wrote a letter and I walked out of there 11 years early,” Harmon said. “Why? Because you and I, you are not a product of your environment, you are a product of how you navigate your story.”

For the full story, see the Wednesday, Feb. 12, edition of the Jacksboro Herald-Gazette.