Young boy with disabled parents steps up and builds a business in the process

 Common Sense:

Social media is mostly garbage. My own feed is crammed with doomsday predictions and ads for scammy diets. But every once in a while, between the hashtags and the hysteria, a jewel presents itself.

Like Cole Summers.

I never met Cole Summers in real life. But I was completely floored by what I learned about him—and from him—online.

At first, to be honest, I worried this kid was just too good to be true.

Here’s what I mean: When he was six, Cole—whose family owns a farm in Beryl, Utah—started taking on the repair and maintenance for his family’s vehicles. Both of his parents are disabled: his father is a wheelchair-bound veteran; his mother is partially blind.

He started his first business, breeding and selling rabbits, at age seven. At nine, he started paying his own taxes. By ten, he had bought and was running a 350-acre farmstead where he raised goats and turkeys. For his eleventh birthday he bought himself a tractor.

Also: he transplanted trees; he wrote a feature-length film; he bought a run down house and renovated it himself. Oh, and he was a Bitcoin enthusiast, but also found a lot to admire in Warren Buffett. During his free time, he watched YouTube videos of Buffett and other business people talking about their achievements. He had never been to a movie theater.

I wasn’t the only one who thought it was unbelievable.

Cole posted a video two months ago on Twitter. The blonde boy stood in front of his own property addressing the camera. “Not everybody thinks I am me, so here I am! I really am a 14 year-old homeschooler,” he said. “I really do spend all my time trying to work toward changing the business model of desert farming to quickly stop aquifer depletion while keeping thousands of acres from being turned into dust bowl farmlands.” Here’s how the video ended: “I am who I say I am.”

I reached out to Cole to see if he wanted to write a piece for Common Sense. He delivered a few weeks ago; it was sitting in my inbox waiting to be edited.

I could never have imagined that the next time I would hear from Cole, it would be his dad DMing me on Twitter telling me that his son had died. The 14 year-old—whose real name was Kevin Cooper; he wrote under a pseudonym—drowned last Saturday in the Newcastle Reservoir in Utah while kayaking with his older brother.

Cole had plans. He was excited to get his driver’s license. He had his eye set on six properties made up of almost 7,000 acres in the Great Basin where he lived. He was passionate about the environment, water conservation, and reducing gas emissions. He wanted to buy thousands of acres of farmland to help avoid an environmental supply chain disaster.

He knew he would take care of his autistic brother who is three years older than him. He wrote in his book: “I want to raise my own kids here one day. I want my kids to enjoy watching the wild rabbits, deer, and pronghorn that live here. I want them to look forward to seeing bald eagles migrate in and live here every winter, just like I do.”

In his short life, Cole managed to cultivate two qualities that are rare even among most adults. He was at home in the real, physical world and he took great pleasure in it. And: he was completely unafraid to try.

You can buy Cole’s autobiography, “Don’t Tell Me I Can’t: An Ambitious Homeschooler’s Journey,” here. And you can help his family get through this unimaginable tragedy by donating to them here.
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There is more. 

It is sad to learn that such a remarkable life was cut short.  Cole can and should be an inspiration to others.