FROM DRUGS TO DIPLOMA A LONG ROAD

A recent e-mail was one of the happiest graduation announcements I
have ever received.

The note was from Kimberly Harris, 34, of Chattanooga, and the
salutation at the top of the letter read simply: "Dear Chattanooga
Times Free Press..."

Ms. Harris, a psychology major at the University of Tennessee at
Chattanooga who will graduate next Sunday, wanted to share some of
her life story as a counterbalance to the "sensationalized negative
news" she sees in the newspaper.

The odds against Ms. Harris' receiving a four-year college degree
could hardly have been greater. The icing: She has a 3.2 grade-point
average and hopes to attend graduate school to study public
administration.

Not so long ago, Kimberly Harris was a self-described crack cocaine addict.

"My personal background is one of trouble and bad choices," she wrote
in her letter to the newspaper.

I asked Ms. Harris to drop by the newsroom one day to talk.

"I'm not a victim," she insisted during her visit. "Victims don't
have choices."

It turns out that drug addiction was not Ms. Harris' only challenge.
She completed college while working odd jobs to support five
children. Their age spread is 3 to 17 years. Her children have been
her motivation for changing her life, Ms. Harris said.

Growing up in the Boone-Hysinger public housing complex here (now the
Harriet Tubman Development), Ms. Harris said she was an unhappy,
brooding child. Actually, "mean" is the word she used to describe
herself.

"I didn't feel good about myself," she recalled. "I watched 'Leave It
to Beaver' and the 'Brady Bunch' on television. Their lives looked
complete. Mine felt incomplete."

Violence was common in her neighborhood and had a numbing effect on
the children there, she said. As a 10-year-old child, she remembers
running behind a man brandishing a pistol just to watch him shoot
another man in the back.

"I remember not being shocked," she said. "I was immune to violence.
I remember looking at the braids in the (dead) man's hair and
wondering who was going to get them out for his funeral."

By the time she hit her early 20s, Ms. Harris had three children and
had begun experimenting with crack cocaine. For eight months, she
lost herself in the fog of the drug, she said.

"I remember thinking, 'This is it. This is the euphoric feeling I've
been looking for,''' she said. "Little did I know how much agony
would be attached.'''

Once, she got high on drugs and missed a court hearing to determine
the custody of her children. Ultimately, it was the threat of losing
them that snapped her out of the cocaine spiral, she said.

In drug rehab, Ms. Harris said she began to confront her lagging
self-esteem and to strengthen her religious faith.

Once her heart changed, she said, doors began to open almost
miraculously. Because of her drug problem she was able to tap
rehabilitation funds to pay for college. She found a benevolent
landlord who understood when her rent payments were a little late.

Earning a college diploma next week is a milestone, she said.

"But that degree wouldn't mean anything if I hadn't had a change of
heart,'' Ms. Harris said.

Next Sunday at a little after 2 p.m., Ms. Harris will attend
graduation ceremonies at UTC with her five children watching.

"I think they are proud of me," she said.

I imagine they are.