SEQUIM — Jordan Bush’s high school career was “one long, slow and sometimes painful U-turn,” his friend and counselor Mitzi Sanders said last week.

He started at Sequim High displaying almost no interest in his classes — until he enrolled in the Clallam County Fire District’s Explorers program and found his calling.

“Working at the fire station, I’ve developed discipline, greater communication and an unbeatable drive to work as hard as I must for my dreams,” Bush wrote in the personal statement Sequim High students compose their senior year.

Work he did, through a grueling nine months.

To make up for failed credits in earlier years, Bush took “zero hour” — as in 7 a.m. — gym classes, online classes and the rest of his required classes, and called the load an “epic last-second makeup session.”

On Friday night, Bush wore his reward: the purple cap and gown that proclaims him a Sequim High School graduate.

U-Turn Award

Halfway through the ceremonies, he walked to the podium when Sequim High School principal Shawn Langston announced he was the winner of the U-Turn Award, a recognition of a student who’s turned his or her life around.

Langston read a letter from Greg Glasser, a teacher who’s known Bush since middle school, back when he was “extremely difficult to motivate.”

Watching the young man transform, Glasser wrote, “taught me to see hope in all of my students.”

Sanders, Sequim High’s career counselor, added that what impressed her most was “how he takes 100 percent ownership of his self-created situation. He has never played the blame game.

“He could have easily pointed to the many adversities and the dire financial situation he’s had to endure in his personal life … but Jordan will have none of that.”

Then Sanders quoted his personal statement again: “As an American-born citizen, I have been given many more opportunities to succeed than a large percentage of planet Earth’s population.”

Bush plans to attend Peninsula College and pursue a life in the fire service.

“To be a firefighter is my ultimate goal,” he wrote, “and I’m ready to do whatever it takes to be able to help people.”

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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.