Toy story: How a high school superstar almost lost his future
The 18-year-old senior wheeled his father's pick-up truck into the student parking lot at Fluvanna County High School. It was just before 8am on the morning of Friday, January 29, when the event occurred that turned him from a normal student to the latest casualty in the war on school violence.
"I was just thinking about getting to class," recalls Justin Sexton.
A member of Fluvanna High's football team, he'd been voted Homecoming King in the fall, and despite working three part-time jobs, Sexton somehow maintained a 3.2 GPA. His hard work had paid off as he was accepted early admission to his first choice school, Old Dominion University in Norfolk, and the Officer Candidate Program of the U.S. Coast Guard.
But as he prepared to park his father's white 1999 Ford F-250 he sometimes drove to school, Sexton was flagged down by an administrator who noticed the absence of a necessary permit required for on-site parking. Sexton promised he'd stop by the school office to purchase the $20 sticker, and he started to pull out of the lot.
"I wasn't worried," he says with a shrug. He should have been.
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Full Stories List for April 1st, 2010 issue #0913
4Better Or Worse
News
On Architecture
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Movie Reviews
Question of the Week
Real Estate
Real Estate - On the Block
Strange But True
The Brazen Careerist
