Jackson Free Press

"You can be a smart person, but if you're not able to communicate effectively, it's a waste of time," Simeyon Butler says.

The 18-year-old Murrah High School graduate just received the Mississippi Association of Supervisors Minority Caucus Scholarship from the Hinds County Board of Supervisors. Supervisors award the $1,000 scholarship to graduating high school students who excelled in academics and extracurricular activities, and who show a strong potential for leadership.

Butler developed his leadership skills as the drum major in Murrah's marching band. "Before I became one, I thought the drum major was just some person standing in front of the band who nobody really looks at," Butler says. "But after doing the job, I realized that without the drum major, the whole band would fall apart. Everyone looks to you to know what to do."

With that kind of responsibility, Butler learned that communication is key. "You have to learn how to tell people what needs to be done," he says. "You have to know the way to talk to your peers that's going to get the point across."

He will utilize this skill often when he becomes a pharmacist, his goal after college. "As a pharmacist, you're working with people," Butler says. "... You have to take initiative and get things done, like you do as a drum major."

Butler credits his teachers at Murrah for mentoring him and preparing him for college. "They're not just there to give you work," he says. "They really care about you and check on you to see how you're doing."

His family also deserves credit for encouraging his interest in science and pushing him to join programs that would prepare him for his goal.

"Once Simeyon decided he wanted go into the medical field, we immediately began looking at different programs geared toward that," says his mother, Dewanna Butler.

One such program is JPS's "Base Pair" program. In Base Pair, JPS partners with the University of Mississippi Medical Center, giving high-school students the opportunity to take classes and shadow doctors at the UMMC hospital.

Butler will attend Alcorn State University in the fall, and says he plans to stay in Mississippi, most likely in Jackson. "I've had my fair share of travels, and I realized that when you go to the North, you miss that hospitality we have in the South," Butler says. "In Jackson, you go places and people speak to you, ask you how you're doing... and that's part of what makes it a great place to live. I've lived in Jackson all my life and I see myself living here when I'm older."

Butler also wants to return to Jackson to give back to the city that raised him, saying, "I want to come back as a pharmacist and help people in the community that has given me so much."

Butler added, "In one word: kindness--kindness is what I've received here."