WEST PALM BEACH — Karen Bailey knew her son, Hugh Bailey Jr., was destined for a career involving complex scientific equations when he proved both his parents wrong in one of his third-grade math homework assignments.
Hugh had asked his mother to check if he had done his work correctly. She thought not, so she erased his answers and worked with him to “correct” them, she said.
The next day, his teacher marked his homework wrong, but called his mother after noticing the erased answers and told her: “‘All his answers you had changed were done right.’ From that day on, we never questioned anything he did.”
Karen Bailey recalled that story Saturday afternoon at Florida Power & Light’s Manatee Lagoon complex on North Flagler Drive, beaming with pride as her son received a scholarship during a luncheon hosted by the nonprofit Palm Beach County Caucus of Black Elected Officials. An 18-year-old Suncoast Community High School graduate, Hugh Bailey Jr. will attend Florida Atlantic University’s Wilkes Honors College in Jupiter to study computer engineering and computer science.