t-shirt Monologue:  Bill Cosby

Bill Cosby's "Hello Friend" brand is in honor of his late son Ennis Cosby.  For the past several years, community man Eric Wesson has been inviting Dr. Cosby to Kansas City to speak on numerous occassions.  Each visit seems to top the last and inspire more people.  Fortunately, T-Shirt King, Inc. has been able to help Mr. Wesson and Dr. Cosby spread their motivational messages of peace, love and success!

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About Hello Friend

Drs. William H. and Camille O. Cosby established the Hello Friend/Ennis William Cosby Foundation to fulfill the goals and dreams of their son; its name was inspired by Ennis' common greeting. Formed in early 1997, the organization is dedicated to the vision that no one with learning differences be denied the lifelong joy and fulfillment of learning. The Foundation's mandate is to effect fundamental changes in services, attitudes, educational systems, families and communities, in order to realize the capabilities of learning within all human beings

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Below is an article regarding Cosby's visit to Kansas City.  The article and pictures are provided by www.ruskinnews.com

By Tamara Davis

On Feb. 24, actor and motivational speaker Bill Cosby came to Ruskin High School, to lecture and encourage students  to be leaders and become a more positive generation.

The Hickman Mills Board of Directors, students from the Hickman Mills C-1 School District along with six other schools, mentor and journalist Eric Wesson, who put the program together, Hot 103 Jamz reps, and the mayor of Kansas City all attended this event.

Songstress and Harpist Rashida Jolley was the phenomenal special guest of the program. She spoke to the audience about not giving up so easy in life. She gave four inspirational goals for everyone to set for themselves, in order to reach their goals. Those goals included, desire for what you want to do with your life, believing in yourself, dreams, and taking action to accomplish your goals.

“It may be bad that you go for something and fail,” Jolley said. “But the worst thing you could do, is to not try at all.”

She gave the students a personal account of how she kept her dream alive of winning the Miss America Pageant.

“I lost the pageant three times,” she said. “People often say that three times is a charm, but it was my fourth time that I went back and finally won. This goes to show that you have to do extra. I want students to walk the extra mile to get to their dreams.”

The students filled the auditorium with loud cheers as Jolley sang “No One,” originally by Alicia Keys, with them. The song related to Jolley’s lecture of how nothing should get in the way of your dreams.

“I really enjoyed Rashida’s performance,” senior Tiara Jones said.”I was very much inspired by her lecture and her talents.”

During this program, Ruskin’s drama club performed a skit, showing students the wrong and right ways of handling a variety of difficult situations, in which teens face today.

“The skit was really good,” senior Trei Brown said. “It actually inspired me to keep doing well in school and to work hard on achieving my goals.”

Senior T’Keaya Gaines agreed.

“I felt that the skit was very insightful,” she said. “It helped me realize that I can achieve anything that I set my mind to.”

Cosby was then introduce to the audience. He gave his perspective of the play and how students should take the responsible steps of negative situations.

“We got to get tough,” Cosby said. “We have to be better and challenge this generation.”

Cosby encouraged the students to ignore the community faults of not reaching out to the youth and to find someone who inspires them the most. He wants parents and adults to step up in the youth’s lives.

“If the parents don’t teach their children about what’s reality, then they will go off and easily be influenced by the stupidity in the communities,” Cosby said.

This generation has to toughen up, according to Cosby. This starts by the youth speaking up, and the adults getting through to their children.

“Classic Bill Cosby,” Ruskin business teacher Terri Redden said. “I thought he was wonderful, and I hope the students were really listening to what he had to say.”

Senior Tevin Johnney agreed.

“Bill Cosby was speaking real,” he said. “What he was saying, was something that we really need to hear. I plan on using all of the advice that was given in this program.”