Small-town teen became a real-life success

She came up from a small Alabama town, caught in a black hole that was sucking her down faster than a bad mood. If your family didn’t do right, then you didn’t either. That was the way most folks felt, no matter how you really behaved. A last name went a long way. She attended high school and worked two part-time jobs but was moving every three months, one step ahead of something bad happening. She tried to keep positive people in her life. She stayed with a preacher. She lived for a time with her grandmother, who always encouraged her to look at the upside of difficult situations. But she knew that if she stayed, eventually the drugs infesting the lives of those around her would catch up and put her on the street. So Jamechia Prater, at 19, rode a bus for a day and a half from Gadsden, Ala., to Kansas City, Kan., where a... [read full story]