![\"Brad](\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Brad-Hurtig-4-2015.jpg\")
<\/a>Hurtig grew up as a typical student \u00adathlete in a small town in Ohio, but only days after finishing his sophomore year of high school, a devastating accident resulted in the amputation of both his hands.\u00a0 Through hard work and determination, Hurtig soon rejoined his high school football team, and, in his senior year, Hurtig led his team in tackles and received all-\u00adstate honors, all while playing with no hands.<\/p>\n
Hurtig\u2019s inspirational story has been featured in the national news media, including ESPN and The New York Times<\/i>. Now Hurtig is taking his life-changing message to schools across the nation.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s awards banquet will be held Tuesday, April 28.\u00a0 The R.K. Thompson Self-Reliance Award Program was initiated 45 years ago by R.K. Thompson Jr. in honor of his father, the late R.K. Thompson Sr. Both men worked closely with young people and encouraged them to set high, but attainable goals and then apply themselves to obtain those goals.<\/p>\n
The program provides cash awards for high school seniors in Van Wert County who best exhibit that character trait. The Self-Reliance Award is designed to seek out and honor seniors who \u201cdo the best with what they have,\u201d whether they are scholars, athletes, student leaders or someone who must work t to help their family meet expenses.<\/p>\n
The R.K. Thompson Self-Reliance Award is sponsored by the Thompson Family Trust, through the Van Wert County Foundation, and administered by the Van Wert Service Club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VW independent\/submitted information The Thompson family and Van Wert Service Club announce that Brad Hurtig will be the speaker for this year\u2019s R.K Thompson Self-Reliance Awards banquet. Hurtig grew up as a typical student \u00adathlete in a small town in Ohio, but only days after finishing his sophomore year of high school, a devastating accident […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-04 02:41:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}