CORBIN, Ky. — Corbin, Kentucky is a small town, but Tanner Davis is making a big difference.
The Senior at Corbin High School has never gotten a “B”, leading to a weighted 4.7 GPA.
He’s student council president, a Governor’s Scholar, president of the Student Technology Leadership Program and president of the Engineering Club. He was a Showcase Winner at the Kentucky Youth Assembly Supreme Court and volunteers at over 15 local organizations, providing over 500 hours of community service.
He does all that while dealing with ongoing health issues.
He explains, “From when I was literally first born, I’ve always had a heart condition. I have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. So my entire life I’ve not been able to do stuff like say a normal kid would be able to do. Last summer on June 13, I was doing a stress test at the Cleveland Clinic and I actually collapsed during that stress test. So I had a defibrillator put in last summer and that’s something I’ve been trying to adjust to. I’m the type of guy who’s like, I don’t like being told that I can’t do something, you know, somebody’s gonna tell me I can’t do something like I want to prove them wrong. I want to show them.”
Since he can’t play sports that would stress his heart, he’s found other options — like archery and bowling. His bowling coach Josh Giles says Tanner has been a constant inspiration to his teammates, saying, “When other kids look at him they’re like, gosh, look at what he’s going through and he can still come in here and have a smile on his face and put others before himself.”
But the activity that Tanner loves the most is fishing.
“I’m a Christian and I just feel like I connect with God out there. You know, I’m able to sit on the boat and just look around and see the actual beauty of what he’s created for us. There’s just something about being able to sit in a boat and just watch the sun come up and just see the fog lifting off the water, just a little bit and just everything. It’s just, it’s beautiful. It really is and it just, it warms my heart like I get, I get chill bumps thinking about it just excites me.”
He continued, “But that’s fishing. My dad’s always really been into it and he tells me a story of when, like before I was born, my mom was actually pregnant with me. He was fishing with our church and him and another one of the guys in our church were fishing and they came around a point. There was a dad and his son standing on a boat. They’re standing there fishing together and my dad turned to the guy with him and said, ‘One of these days I want that to be me and my son.’ So when dad first told me that story, I was like, ‘Yeah, you know, that’s cool and stuff.’ But as I think back more of it now, I’m like, that’s what really drives me is being able to spend that time with my dad and have that emotional connection, being able to do that. With fishing, I feel this connection. It’s something that I feel like I was just like, born to do.”
Tanner has become an expert fisherman, so good that he qualified for the National High School Fishing Finals and won there to advance to the World Finals. He even wants to be a professional fisherman for a living.
When we asked what it takes to be good at the sport, he told us, “There’s a saying that 90% of the fish are in 10% of the water. So I know that sounds crazy. But that could be water depth. That could be the area of the lake. It just depends what type of year it is. So it’s just like any other sport, it takes practice. You got to spend time on the lake and you’ve got to understand the fish. If that makes sense, you gotta think like a fish.”
In what he calls his “back-up plan”, this fall he’ll attend the University of Kentucky to study mechanical engineering.
Whether he’s casting a line, solving an equation or giving back to his city, Tanner Davis is an inspiration. That’s why he’s a deserving Spectrum News 1 High School Scholar.