S.C. Man Still Attends High School At 56

Nov. 13 -- James Kennedy is the most popular guy at T.L. Hanna High School, but he is not a student.

He just may be the most celebrated member of the football and basketball teams at the Anderson, S.C. high school, but he has never played — not even for a second.

Kennedy — nicknamed "Radio," because he used to carry one around constantly — is mentally disabled. The 56-year-old can neither read, nor write, and his speech is limited. But each morning at 6:30, Kennedy takes a school bus to the high school that has become his second home.

No one could get him to leave, but then again, nobody is asking him to.

The school's adopted "student" has become a local legend, a kind spirit who has taught two generations of high school students a lesson about love.

"To know Radio is to love Radio, and he loves everybody else," said special education teacher Allison Boozer. "It doesn't matter how bad your day is going, he comes up and gives you a hug and says 'I love you' and the bad day is washed away."

Hanging Around the Sidelines

It all began in 1963, when Kennedy, then 17, wandered onto the field during football practice and began mimicking coach Harold Jones from the sideline.

Instead of shooing Kennedy away, he invited the teen to stick around. Nearly 40 years later, Jones still isn't sure why he reacted the way he did.

"I don't know why — he just kept hanging around us you know, and so we said 'OK, come on, travel with us. Come on up on the sidelines on the game day,'" Jones said. "And so that's kind of how it started and he did, you know."

He never would have dreamed how much Kennedy would have blossomed, and how much the students would accept him. Nor did he realize at the time what an effect he had on the players and students at the school.

It meant a lot to Kennedy to attend the games — and when the weather was too foul for football, he kept his outlook sunny, Jones said.

"When we had football games and it was pouring down rain you know he'd come in the office and he'd tell 'em, 'sun's coming out' — you know he didn't want us to call that ball game off," Jones recalled. "And he'd be soaking wet — he'd be outside looking up at the sky — raining like crazy."