ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) -Jordan Hughes learned at a very young age that life is finite after he nearly died during a drive-by shooting at the Peabody Housing Complex in downtown St. Louis.

Hughes was only 11 years old at the time and was hanging out with his brother, when a car drove by a group of people and opened fire.

“It was a defining moment of my life,” he said. “It changed a lot of things for me.”

In the years that followed, he resented school, graduating high school with a 1.8 GPA. He took a few years off, before a lost wallet brought him back to St. Louis.

After that, everything changed. Hughes enrolled at St. Louis Community College and this past May graduated with a near 4.0 and served as the class’ commencement speaker.

He set out to raise money to attend the Unive

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