Rep. Tim Scott — the rising Republican star just tapped to fill the seat of outgoing South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint — has revealed he was a terrible student when he entered high school.
Scott, 47, says he was failing many of his classes, including both English and Spanish, and was definitely not “bilingual.”
“They may refer to you as bi-ignorant because you can’t speak in any language,” he joked at a news conference yesterday.
“I was being a normal 14-year-old, not always paying attention to what was happening in my life.’’
But Scott says he made a dramatic turnaround thanks to his mother Frances, who raised him alone after a divorce, and a friend, the late restaurateur John Moniz, who gave him motivational talks, advice, and “basic Biblical business principles.’’
“My mother tilled the soil – sometimes it was difficult, hard soil – and she taught me responsibility, discipline,” Scott, 47, told
The State newspaper.
“John dropped the seeds in fertile soil and, in time, they germinated and a root system started to grow. He was a blessing from God.”
Scott — appointed Monday by Gov. Nikki Haley — will be the Palmetto State’s first African-American U.S. senator and the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction.
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