For over a decade, the true story of Liz Murray in Homeless to Harvard has inspired many people throughout the world. Many students on campus are unaware that a Lipscomb student has a similar story.
Lebron Hill, a senior from Tullahoma, now calls Sewell Hall home, but just five years ago his setting was very different.
Hill became a resident of the Shepherd’s House, a homeless shelter in his small Tennessee hometown, when he was just eighteen.
Up until then, his life was plagued by psychological abuse from his mother and a home life that did not emphasize the importance of a good education.
Hill, with the assistance of his mother, dropped out of high school during his senior year. Needing an escape, he went to the Shepherd’s House.
On the way to the shelter, Hill and his brother got into an argument. Hill’s brother stopped the car and threw all of Hill’s belongings into a ditch. Hill later arrived to the shelter in tears and began to contemplate what direction his life would go.
“I remember thinking ‘what’s next?’,” Hill said. “The first month in the shelter was a lot of praying, a lot of questioning and a lot of figuring out who I was as a person.”
Hill decided to get his GED and began biking back and forth to school and his job at Kroger. During this time, he began a connection with his childhood pastor Randy Davis.
Davis took an interest in Hill and encouraged him to attend Motlow State Community College; Davis would eventually drive him to and from school each day and to work when it was needed.
Hill used the money he earned to rent an apartment and purchase a car. After two years of hard work, he graduated with an Associate’s degree in Mass Communications.
With a dream to eventually work as a news anchor, Hill enrolled at Lipscomb University and quickly became an active part of the journalism department. He has worked with both Lumination Network and the Lumination Newscast. Hill will graduate in May and hopes to get a job at a news station in Nashville.
“I know I have to start small,” Hill said. “I have to work hard for those goals.”