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<\/a>One thing he didn\u2019t get<\/strong> from his mom is his sense of humor, at least according to her. However, she says her son\u2019s passion to make others laugh was obvious from a very young age.<\/p>\n\u201cJoe is one of the funniest people I\u2019ve ever been around,\u201d says Professor of Psychology Bobby Horton. \u201cHe\u2019s so fast, but it\u2019s a dry-ish humor too. He doesn\u2019t seem to be trying. He just says these things that are hilarious and self-deprecating.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat quick mind that produces all of these quips and stories is the same sort of quick thinking about information and material that makes him a fantastic student.\u201d<\/p>\n
Professor of Chemistry Wally Novak remembers the day Whitaker came in to give his final senior presentation\u2014in an elf costume.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe comes in with his coat on, takes it off, and he\u2019s wearing this silly outfit. Then he does this presentation that\u2019s, well, really funny, but also scientifically correct.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier in the semester, when Novak gave the six students in his advanced biochemistry course a particularly difficult problem, he figured he\u2019d have to help them the next time they met.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next class period I asked, \u2018Did anyone get this?\u2019\u201d Novak says. \u201cAnd they all raised their hands. So I asked one of them, \u2018How did you get it?\u2019 And he said, \u2018Joe helped me.\u2019 Then I looked around the room and they\u2019re all saying, \u2018Joe helped me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJoe is probably the most amazing person I\u2019ve had the pleasure of knowing,\u201d friend and fellow swimmer Wes Slaughter \u201921 says. \u201cI’m not sure how he does it, but Joe manages to brighten people’s days wherever he goes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are certain students that you want the world for, and part of that is because they\u2019re not demanding it, and Joe is one of those,\u201d Horton says. \u201cYou just want him to feel as good about as himself as he deserves to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whitaker says he gives of himself because other people have given him so much. It\u2019s the same reason he wants to become a doctor.<\/p>\n
The seed was planted when he was in eighth grade\u2014on March 8, 2011.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that seems very specific, but my nephew was born on March 2, 2011. He ended up having a heart attack and had to have open heart surgery on March 8.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was fascinated watching hospital staff who were dedicated to helping other people, but, back then, that\u2019s as far as it went.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t understand everything in that moment because I didn\u2019t really know my nephew. To me, he had just been a bump in a stomach. And then for a few days, he was just a baby that cried. But then he became a baby that couldn\u2019t breathe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew that I loved him, but I didn\u2019t know him. As I\u2019ve gotten to know him, the life that was there then has become invaluable to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you repay something you can\u2019t put a price on? For me, that means med school. I\u2019d love to do that for other people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whitaker, a fellow with the Wabash College Global Health Initiative, was recently accepted at the Indiana University School of Medicine and will begin his studies in the fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoe is really smart, and I would take his analytical mind as a physician in a heartbeat,\u201d Horton says. \u201cBut when you add his personal sensitivity to it, it\u2019s a really cool combination. Joe will be the one you\u2019re going to want next to you, the one you want to deliver information\u2014whether it\u2019s positive or negative.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just easy to spend time with,\u201d Isaac Hunter \u201919 says. \u201cWhen we did biochemistry research with Dr. Novak over the summer of 2017, one of my best memories was racing around Wabash on two kid-sized electric mopeds he was fixing for his family. Even though our actual research was falling apart at every turn, I don\u2019t think we ever went a full half-hour without a good laugh or a quality conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Whitaker\u2019s passion for<\/strong> helping others turned a presentation about substance abuse in Montgomery County into volunteering at Half Way Home, a 180-day rehabilitation program for women.<\/p>\n\u201cWhen the director of the program asked me if there was anyone in my family who had suffered from substance abuse, my first answer was no. I didn\u2019t realize how much alcoholism is a part of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though my dad did things that were bad, they\u2019re not things I associate with him\u2014it was what he was struggling with. It\u2019s a similar story at Half Way Home.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Whitaker said he wanted to help out the program any way he could, the director asked if he would be interested in teaching one of their life skills classes.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cYes.\u201d No hesitation.<\/p>\n
Where they needed the most help was in a class that taught home maintenance and auto repair, so she asked him if he was handy.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cYes.\u201d Again, no hesitation.<\/p>\n
But there probably should\u2019ve been.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know anything about home maintenance,\u201d Whitaker says. \u201cIf someone is ambidextrous, they\u2019re equally good with both hands. And if they\u2019re ambilevous, they\u2019re equally shitty with both hands. I think I might have that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Determined to be true to his word, though, Whitaker went back to his room that night and dismantled a wall socket and replaced an outlet. In a matter of weeks, he was helping his older brother with drywall and using his car to teach the women of Half Way Home how to change a tire and check the oil.<\/p>\n
The things Whitaker was teaching were, in his mind, tasks that are often \u201con the man\u2019s chore list.\u201d He wanted to give these women the ability to do it on their own\u2014just like his mom had done.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m missing without a dad sometimes. I don\u2019t want to downplay my dad\u2019s role as a father, but, for most of my life, my mom was that role. There aren\u2019t things I can point at and say, \u2018This is what a father should do,\u2019 but I know that everything my mom did is something I want to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone once said that they can\u2019t remember any specific line from a book they\u2019d read, but it changed them nonetheless. That\u2019s what it\u2019s like after growing up with my mom.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I grow up to be the best man possible, I think I\u2019d want to be just like my mom.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What\u2019s a 12-year-old kid to do when the 40-watt bulb that runs his blue lava lamp stops working? For Joe Whitaker \u201919, the answer was simple. Give it more heat. In the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":4756,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-featured-videos"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/06\/joe-vert-2-crop-1-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4744"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4755,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4744\/revisions\/4755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>\u201cI don\u2019t remember where I went, but I heard what sounded like a pipe bomb go off in our kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n