Louise Herrington Ornelas*

The daughter of a sharecropper, Louise Herrington Ornelas was born in 1925 and grew up near Arp, Texas, in poverty. However, the love of her parents carried the family of 12 through the worst of the Great Depression.

Ornelas lived with her parents and siblings in a rented house on a farm. Her father worked the farm, and the children had chores. Ornelas was in charge of milking the cow for the farm's owner; with the money she earned from that job, she bought shoes. Her father supplemented the family's income by working in the Texas oil fields while the children tended the crops.

Despite their poverty, Ornelas says her parents never turned away strangers looking for handouts. One of her favorite pastimes was to look through the Sears catalog, dreaming of one day having store-bought clothes. Her mother made her dresses from flour sacks, and Ornelas decided at an early age she would find a way to rise above her situation.

At 18, she married and worked in a restaurant while her husband went to college. When he graduated, they opened their own restaurant, and Ornelas took management courses at the nearby junior college. Unfortunately, her husband died in a car accident, and Ornelas was forced to move back to her hometown to be near family. A few years later she remarried.

Dreaming of owning their own business, Ornelas and her second husband bought a bankrupt cable television system in Sulphur Springs, Texas. They quickly taught themselves the cable business and worked hard to make it a success. In 1999, they sold their company to Cox Communications for $4 billion.

Ornelas says she is proud of the work the Horatio Alger Association has done for America's deserving youth. "Getting an education is such an important step in trying to better your situation in life," she says. "I am honored to be a part of an Association that is doing so much to help our young people."