Do you remember the 10-year-old from Pahokee, who rose to internet stardom after his interview with Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama? Well, it’s hard to believe, but he’s graduating from high school.
Damon Weaver, 18, reads a letter nearly a decade old from Vice President Biden who told him to never stop pursuing his dreams and “if it remains your passion, I think you will make a great, fine anchorman as you get older.”
When he was just 10-years-old, he asked Vice President Biden how he would keep boys like him safe.
“Yeah, it was about violence, about school, about how can he make things better for us.”
Now, Weaver is a soon-to-be graduate from Royal Palm Beach High School, with a full ride to college.
He’s remembering a trip to the White House to interview President Obama. “It felt great. I knew it was a once in a lifetime opportunity so I took advantage of it,” he said.
Weaver still has that million-dollar smile. He was charming enough to convince me to give him the microphone.
I first met him nearly a decade ago. We laughed about how at the time, he told me I needed to work on my questions.
Today he tells me he thinks he was working on his comebacks at the time. So, I guess you could call him a comeback kid from the Glades.
His mother, Regina Weaver, looked back at photos with him and said,” You’ll be the first to go off to college. You can be anything you want to be if you put your mind to it. Accomplish your goal.”
Weaver now dreams of taking care of his mom.
“My mom has been there and supported me the whole time through the tough times. Ya know, everything isn’t happy,” he said. “I want to give her a nice car and a nice house and a Jacuzzi, so she can relax in it.”
He said one day, who knows, he may be my co-worker right here at WPTV. “I definitely like the way this mic feels,” he joked.
10-year-old who interviewed President Obama in 2009 now graduating from high school https://t.co/i7e8wpfePH pic.twitter.com/SZDLlE0sjp
— WPTV (@WPTV) May 23, 2016
