Abby Nevers is the daughter of a pipefitter and granddaughter of a pipefitter with one arm.
“When I was little, my dad said, ‘You pick. Schoolbooks, work boots or Army boots.’”
It wasn’t dad advice while holding a TV remote from the sofa.
“My dad is one of the most hardworking men I know. He soaked through three, four shirts in a day,” Nevers said of Wade Nevers. “I saw that, and I knew if I worked hard I could accomplish what I wanted to.”
What she wanted to accomplish – after a junior high teacher inspired her on the Constitution and after World War II veterans told her stories of sacrifice to ensure those freedoms as their volunteer driver – was to become a lawyer.
Here’s the trick.
Acceptance to law school is tough enough, but a full-ride scholarship to attend is a rarity. So the Grand Canyon University alumna, who graduated in the spring with a degree in government/legal studies, worked as hard as her father, from Surprise, Arizona.
She began to waitress at a retirement home as a high school sophomore, volunteering for the dirtiest job of taking out the trash, lifting the bag into a big bin as it often ripped and spilled spoiled milk and globs of Jell-O on her pants, because it was humbling and made her more determined to succeed.
Nevers often took two jobs at a time. Fast food. A pharmacy, where she encountered sick and irritated customers but had to stay accurate and focused. Working the graveyard shift in a warehouse full of older men. The further from her comfort zone, the better.
By then, she had begun her studies at GCU but quickly rose in stature in the warehouse, befriending a coworker who told her she should learn to drive a forklift. She soon got certified and became a supervisor to those men at age 21.
“He was in prison from age 11 to 19,” she said of the man. “He shot and killed someone in California in a gang. It was so inspiring to me that he turned his life around, working 16 hours a day for his family as a man of faith.
“It was inspiring to think that I could help people in those situations. One of the great things about GCU is the atmosphere of grace, knowing that people can change.”
It only inspired her more to be a lawyer. 'I’m on a path. This is my dream. It’s what I wanted to do for so long.”
But it’s expensive. And it’s a rarity to receive a full-ride scholarship, though many GCU alumni have received scholarship money to attend law schools across the country.
“The number of GCU students graduating and attending law school continues to rise, as people realize the quality of the program and the success of students that want to be part of it,” said Kevin Walling, chair of justice studies at GCU.
Nevers took the challenge. She got a post as a policy intern with the majority in the Arizona House. She took the law school entrance exam, called the LSAT, once. Didn’t like her score, though passable, so took it twice. Better. Then a third and a fourth time.
“I kept working on it because I know I can do better,” she said.
It led to acceptance at the University of Wyoming College of Law and a bit of scholarship money. But she’d put out a select few other applications, few because they are so expensive, and worked through the summer at Glacier National Park, another of her out-of-comfort-zone jobs. She met people from all over the world and continued to add money to pay for law school.
Sweat through four shirts if she had to.
She signed a rental lease in Laramie, Wyoming. But then one late summer day she got a message from the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law.
Nevers immediately dialed her dad but had no cell service in the park. She used the land line. She was crying.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Have you been in a car accident?”
“I got a full-ride scholarship.”
On Aug. 19, she began classes in Tucson, finding that her classes at GCU, where Walling had her doing legal memos that her peers at UA were doing for the first time, put her ahead of the game.
They couldn’t know that in her admissions essay she had quoted none other than the fictional Rocky Balboa but wouldn’t be surprised if they knew her story. “Going in one more round when you don’t think you can. That’s what makes all the difference in your life.”
She also quoted her dad. Her work boots had become very big schoolbooks.
Grand Canyon University senior writer Mike Kilen can be reached at [email protected]
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