ROMEO & PATTI

Hi my name is Romeo Ryan. I wrote the book "Me and My Hero" with the support of my beautiful sweet wife Patti Sue. It's a true story about my oldest brother Rusty Ryan. In 1968 he was the first black student and football player at an all white high school in the heart of the south. It was a beautiful little country town called Calera located in Shelby County Alabama. His integrating of the high school may have went unnoticed because it was in the same year that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. There was no protesting of Rusty's attendance nor were there any racial fights while he attended Calera High School. Rusty went on to become a star athlete. Where he excelled in football, basketball, baseball and track. After turning down several scholarship offers to play college football he enrolled in the United States Army during the Vietnam era in order to serve his country and to earn money to help out family back home. While in the Army Rusty had a great run at boxing where his record was 20 wins, 2 losses and12 knockouts. He then continued on to have a successful career in the military in which he achieved a Staff Sergeant Ranking until he was honorably discharged because of health issues. That led to Rusty becoming extremely bored and depressed which led to financial insecurity where he found himself on the wrong side of the law. After serving three years in federal prison Rusty rededicated his life to the Lord and then he went on to become a very wealthy and successful entrepreneur who preached the Gospel of Christ until his death in 2014. I was truly blessed to have spent over 40 something years in my brother Rusty's life where I witnessed how he lived and how he died. I feel extremely qualified to write about my brothers life and the impact that he made on so many other people's lives including my own. There's a lost generation of young adults in the world today that could use an inspirational story like Rusty Ryan's.