A Diamond Named George

Diamond, Missouri. . . . “Never heard of it,” most of us conclude.

It was the birthplace of George Washington Carver -- a “diamond” in the rough if ever there was one. His parents were slaves, but the year was 1864 and American slavery was coming to an end. He went off to Kansas as a boy, worked his way through grade school, graduated from what is now Iowa State University, took a post in agricultural research at what is now Tuskegee University . . . and the rest is history. The peanut became perhaps the metaphor of his hard upbringing -- he scientifically demonstrated hundreds of uses for it. All the while, he showed the world you can be born a slave and die a renowned scientist with a national monument (dedicated in Tuskegee, AL, shortly after his passing there in 1943) as your marker.

And that’s why he’s one of my heroes.