Students challenged to be their best

Speaking to 200,000 people a year is a rigorous schedule for anyone. Cycling 100 miles a day is almost inconceivable to most of us. Imagine doing these things with no legs and only one arm.

Meet Bill Mortimer. This is exactly what he does. On Friday, April 20, through the sponsorship of the Sisters Rotary Club, Mortimer told his story to Sisters middle and high school students. He challenged them to be their best in whatever they do.

To a transfixed audience Mortimer spoke of how at age 16 he was searching for acceptance. He wanted someone who would listen to him. Failing to have his needs met in healthy places, he turned to alcohol and drugs.

"That road will never spiral up," Mortimer said.

He dropped out of high school. One night after a wild party, the car his brother was driving struck a power pole and slid down an

embankment.

Both boys walked away from the crash unhurt laughing and joking.

"Sometimes the most dangerous thing we will do is walk away unharmed," Mortimer said.

Unaware of the downed power lines while climbing out of the embankment, Mortimer's left arm hit one of them, shooting 12,500 volts of electricity through his body that exited through his knees.

His left arm was amputated almost immediately. Two weeks later his right leg was amputated. Six months later he lost his left leg. The necessary skin grafts on the front of his body were a much more painful process.

Amazingly, six months later when Mortimer was released from the hospital, he went right back to partying, alcohol and drugs still looking for acceptance.

Fortunately, a strong friend came into his life and helped him. "That help that I accepted gave me hope. ... Hope gave me strength, and with strength I was able to begin to take my handicaps off," Mortimer said.

Mortimer's message is that the only handicaps any of us have are the things we put upon ourselves that keep us from being our best.

"It's got nothing to do with your legs. It's got nothing to do with your arms," he said.

Individuals are handicapped when they have poor attitudes, low self-esteem, prejudice and use alcohol and/or drugs.

Maneuvering his wheelchair back and forth across the stage, Mortimer challenged students to have positive

attitudes. A poor attitude precludes everyone from doing his or her best, he said. It is a crippling disability.

Low self-esteem is also a debilitating handicap.

"Your self-esteem is your personal assessment of who you are. If you don't like that assessment, we call it low self-esteem," Mortimer said.

Mortimer confronted students to accept who they are and the things for which they stand, especially those things that make them different from everyone else.

Through the tragic experience of losing three limbs, Mortimer has learned to accept the things about him that are different.

"When you can accept the things about you that make you different, it makes it so much easier for other people to accept you also," Mortimer said.

Accepting oneself includes accepting one's body. Mortimer cautioned his audience, especially the girls, against getting caught up in what marketers and advertisers tell them they should look like. Mortimer stressed the importance of being fit and healthy.

"You need to walk away from computer screens, TV screens, Game Boy screens," he said.

Mortimer is a handcycler who, with his son, has ridden 204 miles in two days from Seattle to Portland. In the summer of 2008, he and his son plan to cycle across American sharing his message. When Mortimer asked how many middle schoolers had ever cycled 100 miles in a day, only two teachers raised their hands.

Mortimer also told students that if they keep their bodies healthy and fit "shape and weight will take care of themselves. You're not even going to have to concern yourself with it."

Prejudice is a subject Mortimer emphasized with the middle schoolers, admonishing them to stop teasing, bullying, picking on or putting down others.

"You know it's going on, and you need to put a stop to it," he said, telling the students that the best way to stop it is to stop laughing at it.

According to Rotarian Mark Reischneider, who organized the event, much of the Sisters Rotary Club's outreach is for children.

Reischneider has known

Mortimer for eight years.

"I know what he does going around speaking to our armed forces and schools and prisons and churches and just a number of different venues.

Being a parent and being a Rotarian, I just thought it would be a great thing to have Bob come here and visit the schools," Reischneider said.

For more information visit http://www.bobmortimer.org.