Twelve years ago, a reluctant Bill Hector stepped in front of 30 Downers Grove South High School students and offered an emotional and sometimes humorous account of his 25-year battle with diabetes and the roller coaster ride he’d taken to a kidney and pancreas transplant.
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Though he was a U.S. history teacher who had stood before many classes, Hector admits his heart was racing as he began recounting his very personal battle.
“But something just clicked. It was like I had a revelation,” recalled Hector, 52. “Sometimes, in teaching, you get a feeling that it’s working, that things are going well and you are connecting with the kids. That happened and I knew right then I was being called.”
Hector’s “calling” has led him on an 11-year effort to bring transplant/organ donor awareness classes into every school in the state. Last year, under Hector’s guidance, a group of fellow transplant recipients brought their stories to 30,000 students in 31 schools, mostly in the west and southwest suburbs. Hector, himself, appeared before hundreds of kids.
“I am trying to pay back an unpayable debt,” Hector explained. “Every time I step in front of a class and educate kids about organ donation and how important it is, I feel I’m a little closer to paying off that debt.”
But the hard-driving Hector is not satisfied with 31 schools and 30,000 students.He hopes to launch a new program, whereby hundreds of teachers would be trained to deliver the transplant awareness curriculum and encourage students to talk to their parents about becoming organ donors.
Hector appeared before the Illinois State Board of Education recently and asked members to officially endorse a donor awareness program in every high school. It was taken under advisement.
But even without the board’s endorsement, Hector has cooked up another avenue. Hector, who now teaches at Downers Grove North High School, plans to take advantage of a new law that requires teachers to undergo continuing education before they can renew their teaching license. Hector wants the state board to accredit his donor awareness programas an official continuing education program.
“We’re real proud of what we’ve done, but there are 700 schools in the state and we’ve reached 31 of them,” he said. “We haven’t done much when you think about it that way.”
Hector was diagnosed with diabetes when he was a high school sophomore. By 1985, after 25 years on insulin, Hector’s kidneys began to fail. Doctors told him he would have to go on dialysis if he did not get a transplant.
Thirteen months later, an 18-year-old Peoria girl died in a car accident. One of the teenager’s kidneys was transplanted into him. The following year, he received the pancreas of a 19-year-old Champaign boy who was killed in a motorcycle accident.
Hector, who has served as debate coach, wrestling coach and adviser to the pompom squad, said he walked out of the hospital after the second surgery thankful for his new life but determined to put the diabetes and the transplant ordeal behind him.
But within a few months, a health teacher asked him to talk to her class about the transplant. Hector said he agreed only because most of the students already knew about his plight. They had watched his health slowly deteriorate as his kidneys failed, shared his grief after being rushed from school one day for a kidney only to find out the organ was no good, and celebrated after two successful transplants.
“They were so open and receptive to my story,” Hector said of that first class. “A light bulb just went on and I realized that this is where organ donor awareness should start–with teenagers.”
With the assistance of the Regional Organ Bank of Illinois and the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools, Hector developed a transplant/organ awareness curriculum. That curriculum presents the basic facts about organ donations, talks about the myths of transplants and encourages students to talk with their parents about whether they should become potential donors. Hector then enlisted the services of about 25 fellow organ recipients who agreed to give up their days to preach donor awareness.
By 1996, Hector’s program was up and running in about 30 schools. Hector says he was content with that.
But providence smiled on him in 1997 when he received the Milken National Educator Award, an honor given to four Illinois teachers every year. During the awards presentation, Hector mentioned that he planned to use some of the $25,000 award to promote transplant awareness in Illinois schools. State Rep. Mary Lou Cowlishaw (R-Naperville) was in the audience and offered to sponsor a bill.
In 1998, thanks to Hector’s persistence, Gov. Jim Edgar signed legislation that requires regional superintendents to make donor-awareness curriculum available to all high school districts.
Donna Duncan, spokeswoman with the Regional Organ Bank of Illinois, said there is no way to measure the impact Hector has had on organ donations in Illinois.
“But I can tell you this: He has made a huge difference in this state in terms of exposing kids to the facts and myths about transplants and organ donations,” said Duncan, whoseagency is responsible for matching donors with potential recipients in Illinois. Kay Pangle, president of the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools, agreed. As a member of Hector’s transplant awareness advisory committee, Pangle helped develop the transplant curriculum.
“He is the inspiration for this program and he is, quite simply, an inspirational person,” Pangle said.
One of the lives that still might be saved by the program is Bill Hector’s.
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About 16 months ago Hector’s transplanted pancreas failed. Today, he is, once again, on the organ donor list.
“I always tell the students that the two people who donated organs for me are my heroes,” Hector said. “All I can possibly hope for in life is that there is another hero out there for me.”