In eastern Kentucky rests Olive Hill, a little foothill town straddling two counties, Carter and Elliott. It’s not far from Grayson, which is not far from Ashland, which is not far from Huntington, West Virginia. Cameron Holbrook ’24 grew up not far from a lot of places—places that have seen better times.
Holbrook is the youngest of seven, the last of the “second batch” of kids. While his eldest siblings grew up in the 1980s, Cameron’s only seen this side of the new century. The second batch had it easier than the first, now that their parents were more established. While his mom took care of his siblings and nieces and nephews who were his age, his dad did contract renovation work. Holbrook helped with the farm, raising cattle, chickens and guineas.
He also was into music.
“I was heart and soul a trumpet kid,” he said. “I was in band from the fifth grade on.”
Though the second batch had it easier, Holbrook still usually had to wait for a birthday or Christmas to get anything remotely expensive, like most people in the world. That might have included waiting for a trumpet if not for the band director, who loaned him one of his. In this case, Holbrook had to wait until graduation before the band director said he could have it in appreciation of his eagerness and hard work. He had never been so touched.
Over the years, Holbrook impressed everybody around. He was a good kid, a smart kid, the kind of boy the community could rally around because he represented what the future could hold. That might sound great to a lot of people, but that may be because they don’t know what kind of pressure that puts on a teenager, especially one who will be a first-generation college student. People expect great things from the salutatorian and can be fairly prescriptive about how to accomplish them.
Most folks who went to college in his town, including several siblings, went to Morehead State University because it was close by. But Holbrook was getting lots of offers from colleges. The University of Louisville’s J.B. Speed School of Engineering was one, and the people around him considered that prestigious and rare path to be the obvious choice. One would be insane not to take it.
“I was the only one to get accepted to that program,” Holbrook remembered. “People told me I was blowing an opportunity by not going.”
His oldest brother Kenneth, nearly 23 years his senior, had just finished at Berea College, a place not many people had heard of. When Holbrook told people about Berea, they said it was too good to be true. Their eyes popped when they saw the size of the scholarship Berea gave him.
“Coming to Berea was probably one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life,” Holbrook said. “I joke that I went from a one-horse town to a two-horse town, but at Berea, I grew up and became my own person.”
Part of that process was participating in the Appalachian Male Initiative at the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center, where Holbrook learned more about where he was from, the struggles of the region and the role he could play there one day. He learned, too, that it was okay to have an accent and not to let people put him down.
Though he had been encouraged to pursue engineering, Holbrook was more interested in business and economics. He thought of going home one day, opening a record store and teaching other mom-and-pop shops how to succeed.
“I’ve always had that community-focus personality,” he said. “With my degree, I want to work with small businesses and be a resource when it comes to lending and project management, ways to help them stay afloat. Also, I love meeting new people and creating a sense of community.”
Berea was setting him up for that path. Holbrook worked at the Log House Craft Gallery, where he learned the ins and outs of retail business operations and enjoyed meeting and speaking with the people who wandered into the Visitor Center and Shoppe, when he covered for employees there.
Then, when it came time for Berea College to select a new president, Holbrook served on the search committee and found himself chatting with trustees and getting to know faculty and staff better, as well as President Cheryl Nixon. His professional reference list suddenly got a whole lot better.
Now that he’s graduated, Holbrook is looking for an employment foothold in central Kentucky, a place where he can learn how to work with Appalachian communities, how to encourage growth and financial development and literacy and how to go home again. He carries with him the knowledge that a whole community of support—alumni, donors, faculty and staff—is what will get him home to do the same for kids just like himself.
He might even help Olive Hill get a second horse.
