Hess's Heroes

Many years ago I was a professor at Butler University and lived for a year as the "faculty in residence" in the freshman boys dorm. During that time I took the kids out to restaurants that expanded their horizons, we went to cultural events on campus and in the city and I hosted jam sessions in my "apartment." At one point, they made shirts for the whole group with a cartoon version of my face on the front with a signature ear to ear smile that said "Hess's Heroes." Trust me, it is a rather surreal experience to be headed to class only to have a picture of your face walking toward you or even weirder on one of the students in your lecture class. Even though it was mostly a joke, those kids were right, many of them had amazing stories to tell, their peaks, their valleys and what they had done to make it to that point in their lives. In the end, I learned a lot about myself by learning about their lives. This site is about telling the stories of people, some well known, some less so, that inspire us, challenge the status quo, manage to overcome obstacles or have a lesson we all might benefit from. Here is the story of heroes.