Hero Among Us: Sam Kuhnert
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[My prayers have always been simple, and pretty much the same thing all the time.
"God, send us a hero!"
Meet Sam Kuhnert, the 17-year-old son of Todd and Jana Kuhnert of Du Quoin.
Sam stands 6-feet-7 and takes up most of the head room in his Chevy Silverado. He's a center in basketball, a tight end in football and a hero at Camp "No Limits" It's a three-day not-for-profit camp in the Chesterfield, Mo. outback for kids who have suffered a limb loss.
Sam was born with a nub for a left hand. Clinically, "it happens"--certainly no one's fault and the slight disability pales by the huge "don't look back" attitude in the family's gene pool. It's a family of doers.
It's not worth a prosthetic hand, which he would outgrow. And before Sam's days are done medicine and science will have found two remedies--a prosthetic hand driven by artificial intelligence or genetic limb regeneration.
Sam's got a lot to do between now and then.
Like put smiles on the faces of 10 kids in sneakers and flip flops who don't have a hand--or maybe a foot.
"Sam!" "Sam!" "Saaaaam!" they shout when they see him. They use his muscular arms to do chin-ups. He's their teenage "monkey bar."
Sam taught "No Limits" campers who didn't have a hand how to to grab a fly ball out of the air with their glove, then quickly shift to throwing by pulling the glove off and tucking it under their other arm.
"I think everybody left and went home to sign up for summer baseball," Sam smiles.
The kids who love basketball don't have to shoot a "granny ball " or an "under doggy" any more. They make jump shots and layups like pros. The only reason for the ball to fall short of the net is because the kids themselves are only four-feet off the floor. When that happens, Sam raises them high above his head so they can make the basket. "Thanks, Sam!"
They will remember Sam Kuhnert as the man who taught them--many only 8 or 9 years old--how to tie their shoes for the very first time. "I show them my way--how I do it--and they can all tie their own shoes now," he said.
The moms and dads who come and go use the back of their hand to wipe away the tears of happiness.
"What's wrong, mom?" "Nothing, not one thing."
During the two days, Sam probably didn't realize he was changing lives forever. "One of the parents, Brett's mom, said this is the blessing she had been praying for all of his life," Sam says. "Brett was adopted from an orphanage where he almost starved to death." Now, he has a great life.
At Camp "No Limits" he could meet more kids like him. "I am signing me up for baseball," Brett beams.
Jana and Sam found the camp by surfacing through Facebook sites on the internet. "It was close to us," said Sam, who worked at the camp for two out of the three days. He had a baseball game back in Du Quoin the third day.
"It was all amazing to me and I think people there were amazed at what I do and how I do it," said Sam.
"When Sam arrived gold medal parolympian Josh Kennison was in the swimming pool at camp. He had a prosthetic hand. He'd take that hand off and throw a perfect spiral with that football," said Sam.
The camp grew from five kids last year to 10 kids this year and will likely double again by next year. Not only will Sam go back next year, but he has decided that occupational therapy is probably his life's calling.
"It's probably what God wants me to do," he said. "All of these kids with all their difficulties treated me like a hero," he said.
That alone is a big paycheck.
They love Sam. Long after the camp ended they still eMail him.
Sam has always lived a healthy lifestyle. He's strong. He's built like an athlete. He has a confidence and a 6-foot-7 faith in what the future holds for him. "I started working out after I watched how Charlie (his 21-year-old brother) got big and strong and I started doing the same thing," said Sam.
Sam's proud of his brother, a senior at Southeast Missouri State University who is probably headed for law school.
Sam benefits from intelligence, common sense and athleticism and hopes to catch a scholarship at someplace like Greenville Community College after he graduates from the Du Quoin High School next spring. In the meantime, Sam is working on a Web site with a domain name of nubability.com and nubability.org and is already working on sponsors like Nike™. Don't look for it any time soon. It could take several months to put this site together. But, it WILL get done. Remember, there are no limits.