Desta

SIGNAL MOUNTAIN, TN (WRCB)- Desta Bume's 11th grade classmates at Signal Mountain High School listen when he speaks. Occasionally he helps teach them Pre Calculus. The 17-year-old Ethiopian exchange student is attending the school thanks to host parents Jock and Megan Dunbar, who found Desta through the Cherokee Gives Back student exchange program.

Desta says, "Day to day, I help students in class, if there's something they don't understand, I try to help them."

Desta's help is much appreciated by junior classmates. He has earned their respect with his knowledge, his kindess and his work ethic. In addition to excelling in the classroom, he has emerged as the star of the school's cross-country team. He says the classroom facilities are similar in Ethiopia, but while his largest class at Signal Mountain is 28 students, his smallest in his home country is about 150...in the same size classroom. His high school in Ethiopia has about seven thousand students.

Wouter Dewet, a fellow junior says, "You can't help but be inspired, because he has so little, and has managed to do so much."

What Desta has done is rise to the top of his class in Ethiopia, at a school with 7,000 students, far removed from the luxurious surroundings of Signal Mountain. He had to work hard to support his family, walking several miles each day with no shoes until he was 14.

Classmate Tim Hatch said, When i heard his story, I felt like a complete jerk. I take everything for granted, and the things he went through, i can't even imagine."

His host family says Desta is enjoying the U.S. but it's their lives that are enriched. They smile when remembering his first visit to a pizza restaurant (his favorite food), a drive-through car wash, the beach, Atlanta, Nashville and the top of the Empire State Building in New York. Megan Dunbar says the family didn't expect to learn so much from an Ethiopian exchange student.

She says, "When you get into the program, you think about how much we can give this Third World student. But it's the exact opposite. It's how much we have learned from him.

Desta is completing his junior year at Signal Mountain, and must return to Ethiopia for his senior year. What happens after that?

Classmate Aaron Pierce says, "Well actually, I'd like to see him to go a really good college and become a surgeon."

Source: http://www.wrcbtv.com/Global/story.asp?s=10084964