Chosen Volume 1 Issue 1 July 2014 | Page 13

HB: Oh yeah, that is the motivation now. The testimony now
is so impactful, that I can say that I went back to college after
32 years and completed this in three and a half years. I can talk
about it with conviction, now and that makes the story better.
Because, to tell somebody to do something that you haven’t
done verses telling somebody how to go get it done, because
you’ve done it. I just think there’s no greater reward than the
world I am living now. Then to be able to tell these young people, especially these young African American men who need to
see a role model, they need to see somebody who didn’t do it
the conventional way to go back. That’s gonna be my testimony.
Chosen: So you also mentioned the non-profit you have with
your wife Johnnye. Tell me about that.
HB: The Community R.U.L.E. was built on the premise; my
wife was a reading and literacy coach with IPS trying to find
new ways, creative ways where our young people can go back
and get the remedial skills that are often lacking in our youth.
They’ll get past the third grade and they won’t go back and
teach sight words, they won’t go back and teach phonemic
awareness; they won’t go back and teach phonics. So my wife
recognizing that, being in that field for so long, we wanted to
build a non-profit around, let’s specifically target why our
young people cannot comprehensively read or write when they
get to post-secondary education. Because you can be functionally illiterate in school and make B’s and A’s in school and then it
is time to write, analyze, evaluate, synthesize a conversation,
you do not have the skill to. Let’s concentrate on that. And we
watched some young people, you’ve worked with our organization, they defined themselves and developed themselves. They
identify themselves now just with the basic skills that we teach
at The Community R.U.L.E. and with that being our cause and
our plight we’ve watched young people turn into writers.
We’ve watched young people turn into poets, watched young
people learn how to say what say what they feel about themselves where they never had that opportunity before. For me
it’s the most rewarding experience I’ve had in my life, watching
people be able to define themselves. Too many times, our
young people don’t know who they are, and we are trying to

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ask them who they want to be and they don’t know how to define who I am right now. So how can we fix that to breed that
other wish, that other hope? So, that’s what we set out to do
with The Community R.U.L.E.
Chosen: I am so glad to know that it is successful. That is so
key with students we just kinda pass them on even though they
don’t have the necessary skills that they need to be successful
down the road. We’d rather go out and build a prison for them.
HB: And you know like I know in education, Leah, once somebody can identify who they are, the gifts are now are wide
open. The gifts are now are a flood waiting to happen. We
wonder what is wrong with our kids, and we have not taught
them to identify themselves. What are your gifts? What is it
that you are good at doing? How do you express yourself?
What do you like to do? Until we can help them expose themselves and identify themselves, we’re at a lot cause. We are in a
lost cause. We have so many young people coming through
Radio Next now that are able to identify whether they want to
be in the production part of this, whether they want to be in the
people part of this, whether I want to be in the web development part of this. They wouldn’t know that, if they had not had
the opportunity to come in and actually see it.
Chosen: So how are you getting them through the door at RadioNext?
HB: We actually have a partnership with I.U.P.U.I. We have
partnerships with other schools that allow their students to do
internships with RadioNext. We’ve done everything thing to
dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s to be recognized as a MBE
with the city and the state and with the Minority Supplier Diversity Counsel. Now we’re recognized as a viable business,
not only a business but, a viable business that wants to do commerce and exchange with the major corporations. We get a lot
of students now that can be recognized by major corporations
like Wal-Mart and FedEx because of their internship here has
validity. So, we recruit and want young people. This is their
tool.

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