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THE SHEBOYGAN PRESS
Friday, June 5, 1998"Plymouth alumnus tells graduates to take charge of their own lives"
By: Janet OrtegonPLYMOUTH - James Hemauer wants the new graduates of Plymouth High School to take control of their lives.
Hemauer was the featured speaker at Plymouth's graduation ceremony Thursday, and he held his audience spellbound as he explained why he was speaking to them from a motorized wheelchair instead of from behind the podium.
Hemauer graduated from Plymouth High School in 1973, three years after he broke his neck diving into a pond near Elkhart Lake. He damaged vertebrae and nerves, according to the introduction delivered by his niece and 1998 graduate Angela Hemauer, and has been in a wheelchair ever since.
Now, 25 years later, Hemauer is the coordinator of the physical disabilities program at Arizona State University.
Hemauer told the young graduates that the accident that robbed him of his athletic ability and his freedom gave him something even more valuable in return - a purpose.
"Lying under water, unable to move to save yourself, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that, unless something happens, you're in big trouble," Hemauer said.
I honestly reached a point that I thought that was it. I honestly thought I was going to die," he said.
A friend pulled him from the water, however, and soon Hemauer was in the hospital feeling depressed and angry. Then his own father gave him a lecture.
"He said ‘You made the choice to go swimming. There's nobody in the world you can blame for what happened to you but your self,'" Hemauer remembered. The words hit their mark, and Hemauer made a decision.
"I made a conscious decision to try not to dwell on the past, to look to the future, to the positives of what happened to me," he said.
And amid a night of celebration and rose-colored descriptions of future glories, Hemauer brought the graduates small dose of reality.
"All of you out there, someday in your life, sooner or later, you're going to face some sort of tragedy," he said. "Life is not fair. You all have a choice, when you reach obstacles, how to deal with them."
Hemauer asked the class's indulgence while he did something he'd left undone all those years ago when he was injured.
"Every year on the anniversary of my injury, I spend an evening reflecting on what happened to me," Hemauer said. "I'm proud of what I have achieved, but part of me . . . is a little disappointed, almost a little angry. Ashamed, to be honest with you."
That shame came from Hemauer's failure to properly thank Plymouth for its support after he was hurt, he said.
"I never took the opportunity (to thank) that wonderful community of Plymouth for all the encouragement they gave me after my injury," he said.
Hemauer urged all the graduates to learn from his experiences and to use whatever life gives them - good or bad - to build their futures.
"Never, ever doubt the spirit of the human being," he said. "Go out tonight, take control of your life. Make your life happen."