Montrail"I am the product of everything I participate in."


Montrail, the baby of his family and who always sports a big, toothy grin, has witnessed his mother barely scrape by working two jobs to support the family—his father died of a sudden heart attack when Montrail was just an infant. Maybe because of this, he is intensely motivated to succeed in sports, academics, and life. “I want to take care of my mom. She took care of me so I could succeed and now it’s my turn to take care of her,” he says.

Montrail is the top senior in his class at James Madison High School in Dallas, Texas, a likely candidate for the Valedictorian, class president, student council vice-president, captain of the football team, a varsity baseball player, and a golfer. Along with being an Education is Freedom student, he’s a member of the National Honor Society, the Academic Decathlon team, the Esquire Key Club, and the Math Olympiad team. But this all might be due to his inability to keep his mouth shut during class, or at least so says his mother, Josephine. “Montrail likes to talk so I told the teachers, if he talks, give him hard work and if he talks more, give him harder work,” she says. “It didn’t work, he still talked.” 

Last summer, Montrail participated in the EIF Dallas Mayor’s Intern Fellows program where he interned with Atmos Energy, introducing him to the field of engineering. The internship opened doors for Montrail; he was able to network with a completely new social group, previously locked to most disadvantaged, urban residents from James Madison High and schools just like it, since high-level corporate internship programs like the Mayor’s Program are typically targeted solely to college students from the most prestigious schools in the nation. And EIF took Montrail further, enabling him to participate in Engineering Summer Academy, a very selective robotics engineering summer camp at Ohio State University; yet another experience previously unheard of in Montrail’s community, since it is typically accessible to only high school students from high performing schools in affluent suburbs. Montrail’s participation in the summer robotics program will significantly increase his ability to have success in and beyond college – a unique experience, especially for a kid who will be the second in his family to go to college and hopefully the first to earn a degree.

Montrail plans to attend the University of Texas at Austin, majoring in business. EIF has walked alongside Montrail through his academic journey to ensure that he is equipped with the necessary skills to achieve his dream.