rdfs:comment
| - McConnell was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama to Julia Shockley and Addison Mitchell McConnell,. His official U.S. Senate Web site biography omits his Alabama birthplace, stating that he was "Born on February 20, 1942, and raised in south Louisville". McConnell was challenged early in life when he was stricken with polio at age two: In 1992, McConnell teamed up with the University of Louisville to create the McConnell Center.
|
abstract
| - McConnell was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama to Julia Shockley and Addison Mitchell McConnell,. His official U.S. Senate Web site biography omits his Alabama birthplace, stating that he was "Born on February 20, 1942, and raised in south Louisville". McConnell was challenged early in life when he was stricken with polio at age two: "When I was two years old, I came down with an infection that felt a lot like the flu. But after the fever passed, my left leg had gone lame. For two years my mother put me through a physical therapy regimen taught to her by the doctors at the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation, founded by President Roosevelt in Warm Springs, Georgia. From age two to four, I was not allowed to walk or run. But after two years of my mother's care, I was able to have a normal life. A lot of kids at that time, in the 1940s, weren't so lucky. Some were paralyzed for life. Some were sentenced to the iron lung. Many died." Eradication of polio as a scourge was one of the premier successes of the American government; it began under Roosevelt and continued for decades under the Center for Disease Control. McConnell was raised in southern Louisville, Kentucky, where he attended the duPont Manual High School, and in 1964 he graduated with honors from the University of Louisville College of Arts and Sciences. He was student body president and a member of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity. He graduated in 1967 from the University of Kentucky College of Law, where he was elected the president of the Student Bar Association. McConnell became a member of the 100th Training Unit, U.S. Army Reserve, in Louisville, Kentucky during his final semester of law school, and he reported for his six months of active service, primarily for training, in July 1967. After induction at Fort Knox, Kentucky, McConnell was released early from his active-duty military service in August 1967. In 1992, McConnell teamed up with the University of Louisville to create the McConnell Center.
|