Saturday, May 13, 2000
Diploma day a victory for many
Mt. St. Joe grad overcame odds, wants to teach
By Ben L. Kaufman
The Cincinnati Enquirer
It's a day of sheepskins and handshakes for thousands of people graduating at colleges and universities across the Tristate.
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Troy Bellomo holds his daughters Nia and Brooke; his fiance SunShine Vance is in the background.
(Michael E. Keating photo)
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Today, on campuses and at the Firstar Center, Xavier University, Northern Kentucky University, Thomas More College and the College of Mount St. Joseph will confer degrees in fields ranging from education to law, architecture to science.
For many, it is the end of a four-year journey through libraries and classrooms, but for others it is a victory over circumstances and even tragedy.
One of those who beat the odds is Troy Bellomo. Once a poster boy for failure as a Lower Price Hill kid familiar to police, ninth-grade dropout, odd-job handyman, and sometime welfare recipient, he will accept his degree today at the College of Mount St. Joseph.
His resume now lists junior varsity wide receiver, tutor, and making the dean's list as credits. He intends to find a job as a teacher and a coach.
At 3 p.m., Mr. Bellomo, now of Covedale, will graduate.
At 7 p.m., Mr. Bellomo, 26, and SunShine Vance, 24, will marry.
His proposal a few days ago was surprising, Ms. Vance said. “He was always scared of getting married.” However, mentors at the Mount eased those fears.
Mr. Bellomo attributes his transformation to Ms. Vance and supportive educators, a desire to better himself and an ability to apply street smarts to alien systems.
In the mass of Xavier caps and gowns today will be one graduate who overcame brain surgery and paralysis to earn his degree.
Bryan Williams, now 30, was a student manager for XU's basketball team in December 1991 when a car wreck left him in critical condition. He never stopped planning to graduate from his favorite school, and took classes at home in Brooklyn to finish up his Xavier requirements.
His Xavier friends weren't sure he'd make it at all. Then came multiple operations and years of recovery.
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Help with a visual impairment allowed Troy Bellomo to do the reading required at the College of Mount St. Joseph.
(Michael E. Keating photo)
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“He's always told me through this whole thing that his main goal was to graduate from Xavier,” said Tom Eiser, the school's sports information director.
For Mr. Bellomo, the journey was more local. Born in South Fairmount, , he attended lots of grade schools and dropped out of Hughes High School.
“I was a long-haired white boy in a school full of people who didn't like long-haired white boys,” he said.
Mr. Bellomo has nystagmus, a disorder that keeps his eyes constantly in motion. Keeping his eyes on written work creates fatigue and headaches. “Reading is kind of short order,” he said.
In grade schools, he recalled “a lot of frustration ... I had to walk up to read the chalkboard.” Embarrassment and classmates' taunts reinforced other reasons to quit school. “It was easier to work than to be made a fool of.”
Few people wanted to hire a dropout, even for badly paid “under the table jobs,” Mr. Bellomo said.
His turnaround began when he chaperoned a nephew's class field trips. After watching Mr. Bellomo with the youngsters, the teacher told him, “We need people like you to be teachers.”
Mr. Bellomo enrolled in GED classes at Lower Price Hill Community School.
There, teacher Kathy Jones “made all of the accommodations for me” that others hadn't. The secret was using the copier to enlarge the print on all of his assignments, breaks that eased reading fatigue, and extra time on tests.
Mr. Bellomo earned her “immediate respect” by making good on his commitments. “He wasn't one of those young men who sat there with the "poor me,'” she said.
Ms. Jones also talked about college and about Mount St. Joe atop the hill in green suburban Delhi. To Mr. Bellomo, it might have been another planet.
“Trust me,” she told him. “You can go.”
Meanwhile, he had fallen for the girl next door in Riverside.
He became an active ally in her mother's campaign to keep Ms. Vance in school. Troy became “real serious,” and when they talked about having a family, he said both parents should have diplomas, Ms. Vance said.
She graduated in 1994, the year after he completed his GED.
Still, Mr. Bellomo worked as a laborer and hung drywall.
Nudged again by Ms. Jones, Mr. Bellomo finally ventured up the hill.
At 22, he didn't appear very promising to Pat Murdock, head of the Mount's Academic Performance Center.
“This isn't going to work,” she remembers thinking.
A closer look revealed “quite good” GED grades. For placement exams, Mrs. Murdock provided a large-text TV screen and administered tests in sections to avoid fatigue.
Since then, Ms. Murdock's center has provided note-takers, tutors and text-enlarging closed-circuit TV.
“She's a great lady,” Mr. Bellomo said.
Mr. Bellomo started the summer of '96 with four computer literacy courses. “I got A's in every one and I couldn't believe it. It was like wow!”
Fall semester, he took remedial math and English and moved into the mainstream of college classwork.
“He was a very independent learner,” Mrs. Murdock said. “He knew where the help was and he used it.”
He tutored cousins for their GEDs and classmates at the Mount when they hit academic bumps.
Bright and motivated, Mr. Bellomo rarely missed classes.
All this time, money was tight. Ms. Vance worked to supplement Mr. Bellomo's odd jobs, grants from the Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation, scholarships based on American Indian ances try, and student loans.
Now, Ms. Vance is a full-time second-shift nursing aide at Western Hills Retirement Village. She cares for the couple's daughters, Nia, almost 3, and Brooke, almost 1, during the day; Mr. Bellomo is Mr. Mom at night.
“It's struggling, but it's getting better,” Ms. Vance said. "
An unabashed fan, Mrs. Murdock hopes Cincinnati Public Schools hires Mr. Bellomo.
As he says, “That's where I can make the difference ... I feel like I kind of owe a little.”
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