Feb. 2023 | Vol. 33 Iss. 02
FREE
‘THERE IS HELP’
FORMER MURRAY GRAD RECOUNTS HIS HOMELESSNESS, URGES STUDENTS SUPPORT THOSE IN NEED By Julie Slama | j.slama@mycityjournals.com
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n 2018, Thomas Schwab graduated with a 4.0 grade-point average from Murray High School. “I got dropped off my sophomore year with no clue what to do; I hadn’t done school in five years,” he told an auditorium full of Hillcrest Junior High students. “I didn’t know how social circles work or who sat where or anything else.” Schwab had spent those years skipping school, working odd jobs to help his family survive. When his dad stopped working, they lost their house and moved into a trailer park where Schwab would put in retaining walls or fix things. Life didn’t get easier for him when his parents split. Initially, he lived with his siblings and mom in a house in the Salt Lake area. He enrolled at Murray High, explaining to his counselor that he missed his later elementary years as well as all of junior high. However, Schwab said finances grew thin when his mother was pulled out of work, had to rent a car, to go to court in the St. George area where they initially lived with his father. When his mom lost her job and moved to Spanish Fork to be a caretaker, Schwab lived on the streets and worked parttime at Burger King so he could continue school at Murray High. He said he went unnoticed. Continued page 4 Murray High graduate Thomas Schwab tells Murray School District secondary students his story of being homeless and to help one another and not to be ashamed to ask for help if they need food, clothing or other items at school. (Julie Slama/City Journals)
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