ONE TRIBE: Group of sophomores create touching moment during pep rally

May 7—Madison Central High School's motto is pretty simple.

'One Tribe'.

Meaning, everyone is included and is involved in what goes on at Central.

During last week's second "Tribe Rally" event the school has put on this year, a group of sophomores created a moment that truly encompasses the motto.

During the Musical Chairs competition sophomore Roger Brown, who has Down Syndrome, was competing and the sophomore class got behind him as Roger kept advancing. He gained the support of the entire gym and made it all the way to the finals.

Roger ended up winning the contest and a large mass of his classmates stormed the court and celebrated Roger's dramatic win.

"This last week has been fun — my friends helped me out a lot," Roger told the Register.

No one really imagined the life this moment would take on.

However, Roger Brown has been enjoying the moment with all of his friends, who all stormed the court following his win, which has made him emotional.

"I love my friends," he said.

Roger and his group of friends go back to their days at B. Michael Caudill Middle School. Today, this group is as tight as they've ever been.

"Roger is always positive about everything, so I feel like that he deserved his moment at the Tribe Rally," Cameron Steele said.

For Maddox Hamilton, he enjoyed being able to give that moment to a friend.

"It's always awesome to give a positive person that kind of moment and reflect that positivity back on them," he said.

Will Richardson told the Register he's happy to highlight that Roger gives his all to every task, whether it be musical chairs or otherwise.

"If you know Roger, you know he's going to go at it hard and I think it's good to highlight how hard he works," he said.

Richardson said he was scared that the group might get in trouble but when everyone did it, he had to join, which drew laughter from the whole room.

Zach Perkins said that not everyone knew what was going to happen at that rally, but there's always a moment that brings the whole student body together.

For all of them, the moment hasn't quite sunk in that it's gone viral.

"My mom didn't even send it to [my grandmother], my mamaw just saw it," Vince Bradley said. Bradley's grandmother mentioned how proud she is that the moment happened.

"I think it's surreal that it's gone viral," Austin Tremblay said.

"I was at Dollar General and a woman came up to me and she was like: 'I think I saw you guys on LEX18 as a group with a kid named Roger.'

Tremblay responded by saying, 'yeah, we did.'

"I just think it's crazy how fast this has been spreading, almost like wildfire," Tremblay added.

He said that it's been amazing to see people see how cool Roger is.

"It's gone way more viral than any of us would've expected," Zach Perkins said.

For some of the administrators, like Brian Collier, who is in his first year at Central after 18 years in Calloway County Schools, moments like this make his job a joy.

"It's just great to see the relationship they've created are still there even though they aren't in class together," he said.

For Lindsay McKay, who captured and posted the moment to Instagram and Facebook, says the moment captures what Central is.

"People talk about how big we are and I think sometimes you can go towards the negative, in anything and what I hope this does for people is to see that our kids are wonderful kids and they have hearts of gold," McKay said.

Will Richardson agrees.

"I think things like this, whether they go viral to other school or places, it shows what Central is all about," he said.

Spencer Clark thought the moment was cool when talking about the moments before.

"We were all whispering around 'if Roger wins, we're storming the court,'" he said. "It really catches up with you that it did happen seeing everybody talk about it and it spreading in such a positive way."

The group agreed that this moment hasn't quite hit them yet.

"It hasn't just hit us yet with how big and how positive this message is," Zach Perkins said.

Maddox Hamilton said that these types of moments are totally organic moments and that you have to go in, be yourself and be positive and these moments will happen.

When Roger recalled the moment with all of his friends in the room, Roger got emotional.

In that moment, conversation took a back seat and Roger's friends rallied around him, understanding the gravity of the moment.

"It has went so viral but at the same time, all that matters is that somebody's day was made. It was something so simple, and you know this is going to stick with Roger for the rest of his life and everybody else's," Brady Reeder said.

This group is living Madison Central's motto: One Tribe.