Bob Collins
You don’t often hear about motivational speakers getting laid off, a fact Kary W. Bowser might keep in mind in the difficult economy. He’s working on general courses at Century College with an eye on a career in advocacy and leadership.
Some of Bowser’s 31-year-old track records still stand at Roosevelt High School. Between then and today he flew missions with the Air Force to Grenada, was assigned to President Ronald Reagan’s support team on a visit to China in the ’80s, and had a 15-year career in the Postal Service in North Carolina.
He had a track scholarship waiting for him in Mankato but took his route because he wasn’t ready for college, he said. Timing is everything. When he returned to Minnesota in 2005, he wanted to enroll in the two-year pharmacy program at Century, which Century was phasing out in a year. Just as well, his mother wanted him in pharmacy. He wanted to go into radiology.
But now he says he’s into helping other students. “After they graduate from high school, there’s a crossroads: They can turn down a bad road or they can look at other avenues and turn it up a notch. I didn’t have that in the inner city but I had the drive and determination to go another way.”
“I like helping people; it’s just blessings all the way around,” he said, adding that he’s turned some kids’ lives around. “I see myself working in higher education field, dealing with children, pushing a lot of things.”
