Jimmie Aggison is a living, breathing angel of youth empowerment.
If you doubt that assertion, just ask Michael Cantu, the high schooler with C/D grades who wasn’t allowed entrance into the school’s computer program, who eventually graduated from Texas A&M with a computer science degree and now works for Microsoft.
Or check in with Nimitz High School senior and football standout Ke’Lyn Washom, whose powerful story of perseverance was captured in a documentary by Aggison that has garnered nearly 200,000 views online.
Multiply those two students, who are the products of Aggison’s hands-on empowerment work, by a multiple of thousands and you will most likely still come up short when trying to measure the impact Aggison has made—and continues to make—as a presenter with the Council on Recovery (COR).
Council on Recovery
Aggison works in prevention education, a curriculum taught to students before they actually have a substance abuse problem that requires treatment.
“My role as a prevention specialist is to prevent students from dropping out of school and from developing a situation with drugs,” said Aggison, who will celebrate 18 years with COR this July.
In 2024, Aggison was such a standout in his youth empowerment role that he won Prevention Specialist of the Year for the state of Texas. He’s nominated again this year, 2025. And for good reason.
His life-changing efforts never take a break.
Recalling one of his most memorable student encounters, Aggison mentioned an Eastwood Academy junior, Michael Cantu, who was ranked 177 out of 178 students. Though Cantu’s grades improved during his senior year, the student didn’t have the requisite overall resume to allow him entrance into Eastwood’s computer certification class.
But Aggison saw something in the youngster who was fixated on computers, and regularly had Cantu fix his computers when needed.
“I didn’t want to pay Best Buy to work on my computers. I let Michael work on my computers. This kid’s grades didn’t reflect his abilities,” Aggison said about Cantu, who didn’t realize that if he enrolled in college, he would have a clean slate to build the GPA and future he desired.
Once he realized that, the student excelled at HCC before eventually graduating from Texas A&M University with a degree in computer science.
“So, the same student who missed out on a lot of opportunities because of what he projected in high school now works at Microsoft,” said Aggison.
Defender impact
But Aggison’s youth impact doesn’t stop there. Aggison believes his work as the Defender’s High School sports reporter goes hand-in-hand with his “day job.”
“When I’m giving presentations at places like Knipple Education Center, the alternative school in Aldine, I’m the guy that’s talking about staying in school, about the dangers of vaping,” said Aggison. “But when some of those same students are at an Aldine, Eisenhower or MacArthur game I’m covering, they’re like, ‘Oh man, that’s the dude that was telling us to stay in school.’”
Film director
That level of familiarity opened the door to an unexpected growth opportunity for Aggison, a Wichita, Kansas native.
His close relationships with students and parents led him to cover a game, looking to focus on one athlete, but forced to cover another because of his stellar performance.
That student athlete, Ke’Lyn Washom, eventually became the main subject of a documentary, Aggison felt compelled to film (4 Way or No Way) after hearing the standout wide receiver’s story of perseverance after recently losing his twin brother.
“When I got to the game, this kid played unbelievable. And I was looking for a story, so I wrote his article after that game,” said Aggison, who realized one article wouldn’t do Washom’s story justice. “So, I talked with the Defender publisher (Sonny Messiah Jiles), and said, ‘Hey, I got this story. Is it okay if I put something together?’ She saw my vision and my passion and she allowed me to do so. So, I’ve basically followed Ke’Lyn for the next two years to tell his full story.”
“When Jimmie decided to do the documentary, he took a chance because he was doing it on his own, and something he had never done before,” said Ke’Lyn’s mother, Latrice Washom. “He wanted to tell a story of the unknown and he accomplished so much more, putting my son’s story out. He set the bar so high.”
At last count, the documentary has garnered over 190,000 views.
And Aggison is not finished. He has more documentary ideas he wants to bring to life, more high school sports to cover and more lives to change via Council on Recovery.
“With the Defender, it’s a job, but it doesn’t really seem like a job. What I get from COR is the fact that it’s a job, but it’s almost like I’m going to school again. Every year, it’s almost like I’m going to school again,” said Aggison. “And the things that I give young people are some of the things I wish people would’ve given me while I was in high school.”
