I’d like to take a few minutes to tell you about someone who has influenced my life. My mother, Billie Peavler, has had an ever lasting impact on my life, and I will forever look up to her. My parents divorced when I was younger, but my father was never far away. He always helped my mom provide a good life for me, but when I was fourteen my father passed away. Since then, raising a teenage boy as a single parent, my mom has always done her very best to give me everything I need. My mother has been through more than most people will ever go through, and is the strongest woman I know. She has taught me many life lessons, such as, never to give up on anything in life regardless of how difficult something can be. She also believes the solution to any problem is out there somewhere, you just have to look. My mom has taught me to be a leader in anything I do, and never to follow other people’s footsteps, but to make my own path. Throughout the struggle of raising a teenage boy as a single mother, my mom played the role of both parents. She taught me, no matter how tough life can get, or how many obstacles are thrown at you, that you can get through anything as long as you believe in yourself. No matter how tough life has gotten for my mother she has never given up, and has stayed strong. Learning from and watching my mom for the last eighteen years has made me the person I am today. I will always try to pursue my life in many of the ways that my mother has pursued