14. Living Hero

For my living hero, I chose Stephen Hawking because of his amazing battle with life. As it says on his official website, In 1963, Hawking contracted motor neurone disease and was given two years to live. Yet he went on to Cambridge to become a brilliant researcher and Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College. Since 1979 he has held the post of Lucasian Professor at Cambridge, the chair held by Isaac Newton in 1663. Professor Hawking has over a dozen honorary degrees and was awarded the CBE in 1982. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and a Member of the US National Academy of Science. Stephen Hawking is regarded as one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists since Einstein. 

Today he is said to be the smartest man alive, it really puts to work what you were saying about being blind doesn't it Knittle? ;). Most would say they couldn't go on living only being able to move a handful of muscles. Yet against all odds he survived and decided not to (pardon me) a vegetable and use his life for a greater purpose. He went through college and became successful with the only muscle he needed, his brain. He kept positive, and used that brain to make groundbreaking achievements, and still is said to be the greatest mind since Albert Einstein.