Inspirational speaker Ken Freeman spoke at Lindale High School Monday, October 12 about the importance of good choices in students’ everyday lives. Principal Casey Neal researched Freeman and was very impressed with his message and his personal story, and he hoped the students would be just as touched as he was.
“We all make choices,” Principal Casey Neal said. “I read somewhere that the average human being makes about 20,000 decisions each day. We all need help with making choices; we all make bad choices, and our goal is, even as we deal with kids here in my office, that students don’t make a choice that negatively affects them for the rest of their life.”
Freeman speaks at many churches and schools, and he highly encourages the students to go to churches in their area where he’ll be speaking about his religious beliefs as to why he is here today. Freeman spoke at the local New Harmony Baptist Church on Wednesday, October 14.
“I think they related to him [Freeman] well in the beginning,” English teacher Lindsay Kelly said. “He was really funny and got everyone drawn into him. Hopefully the important stuff about making good choices will sink in and they will remember that whenever they are in a situation where a bad choice could affect their future in a negative way.”
Freeman surprised the students with his witty humor while keeping their attention on the importance of everyday and greater-than-life decisions. He not only made the students take a second look at their actions, but also shared parts of his life story and the struggles he went through.
“I’ll probably make better choices in the future,” sophomore Chloe Whiteside said. “It affected me in a positive way because he went through such a bad life and made himself better by making good choices and having a good attitude.”
Freeman spoke about the effect his decisions had on his life and how he turned his life around through Christianity and surrounding himself with people who encourage him to make better choices and have a better attitude.
“Find friends that are going to make your life better,” Freeman said. “Find friends that have incredible morals, values and character. Find friends that really care enough about you that they want your life to have meaning and purpose. Find some people that are going through what you’re going through, kind of like me, and get wisdom from them. Listen to the right people. Learn the right things. Laugh at the right things, and your life will count.”
