On Jan. 16, Worland High School students met in the Middle School Auditorium for an assembly with guest speaker Chad Hymas, one of the top speakers in the nation.

Hymas is a member of the Speakers Roundtable, a group of the top 20 speakers in the world. He traveled 300,000 miles and spoke at 220 events last year, in front of audiences ranging from top businesses to youth events.

You may wonder: “What is he doing in Worland?”

Longtime Worland resident Dr. Carl Cottrell’s daughter Mackenzie is married to Kyler Hymas, Chad’s son.

Hymas was in town visiting, and Cottrell made a request of him: to speak to high school students about a difficult topic.

On December 6, the Worland community was shocked by the tragic news of 17-year-old Tyson Hoopes’ death by suicide. Less than a month has passed, and those affected are still hurting.

Hymas donated an hour of his time last Tuesday speaking to Worland High School students and delivering an uplifting message to remember Hoopes.

Hymas is no stranger to tragedy; his story of success begins with a terrible accident. Living in Height’s Valley, Utah, at age 27, he was living his dream of running a 5,000-acre elk ranch. He got a call at the end of work one day from his wife; she said that their son, Kyler was taking his first steps.

The last thing that Hymas needed to do that day was to move a 2,000-pound bale of hay. To do that, he used a hydraulic operated skid steer, the same one he had done for the task hundreds of times. A warning light for the hydraulics was on, but that could be dealt with another time, Hymas thought then.

Hymas attempted to lift the hay bale using the skid steer, and the hydraulics failed while the bale was lifted above him. It rolled back toward him, striking him in the head and crushing him in his seat.

He was later rescued and reported with numerous injuries, including a broken neck with a 75% sever to his spinal cord.

After recovering, Hymas couldn’t feel and/or move his legs or his feet, and has limited movement in his hands and fingers.

“On the day that Kyler took his first steps, I took my last steps,” he told students.

Hymas spent seven months recovering in a hospital before he was able to see his family. With the news that he would be quadriplegic for the rest of his life, Hymas said that he wanted to end his own life then.

His motivation to go on came from his family. He said, “As soon as I saw my son, and I held him, and I played ball with him like we were supposed to that day, I never thought about it again.”

In the case of the tragedy felt in Worland, Hymas called for students to use it as an opportunity to come together. “I want us to leave this assembly today, and to celebrate Tyson by being closer. The worst thing that could happen is we do nothing; then we’ve all just wasted our time,” he said.

Hymas called also on leaders at the high school to show leadership by their actions to others.

He told the story about a time when he was in high school, when he was the 6’5” captain of the basketball team. The story wasn’t about him, though; it was about Melanie.

Melanie was a girl that went to his high school who had cerebral palsy. She had been wheelchair bound her entire life.

Hymas said that one night, his parents hosted Chad’s basketball team for dinner before a game the next day. After dinner, the team was talking and Melanie got brought up. The team made fun of her, Hymas included. His father overheard them and voiced his disappointment that night.

The next day, Hymas was sitting in the cafeteria at school lunch, and his father walked in and greeted his table. His father told them to get up and follow him. They went to go sit by Melanie.

Hymas and his friends learned a lot about Melanie from spending time with her; one of those things was that her favorite thing to do was to watch the cheerleaders perform at halftime of the basketball games.

Hymas’ father heard this, and took his generosity a step further. He made sure the school caught wind of this, and at a later home basketball game, Melanie got to go out in her wheelchair at halftime with pom poms and perform.

“Leadership is demonstrated by how you treat your peers,”

said Hymas.