Well, here’s the story of one from the Washington Times.

Excerpt:

High school freshman Tim Scott could not afford Chick-fil-A sandwiches back in 1981, but the French fries were good and inexpensive. Eating those fries made him a success, a conservative and an odds-on favorite to be the next congressman from Charleston, S.C.

Mr. Scott has been garnering attention because he is a black Republican who won a primary over the son of the late one-time segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond. South Carolina acquaintances, though, are coming out of the woodwork to say Mr. Scott bears watching not because he is black but because he’s the real deal: industrious, principled, consistent, thoughtful. In a word, authentic.

But to hear him tell it, it all began with the fries.

Mr. Scott’s parents were split – his father was in the Air Force in Colorado – and his mother, he said, worked two eight-hour shifts daily. “She was a nurse’s assistant cleaning up other people’s feces,” he said. “That’s nobody’s definition of fun.” Despite her example of hard work, though, his own schoolwork showed no signs of similar dedication. “I literally failed four subjects at once: world geography, civics, Spanish and English. Those last two subjects showed I wasn’t bilingual, I was bi-ignorant.”

Young Mr. Scott did, however, hold down a part-time job taking tickets at a movie theater. The Chick-fil-A was next door. He bought fries there regularly. The restaurant’s proprietor, a guy named John Moniz – a “Christian conservative white Republican, although I didn’t know it at the time,” Mr. Scott said – “just started recognizing me, and one day he came up and sat down next to me and started talking.”

I love this story. I’m a colored evangelical Protestant man. I was the only evangelical Christian and the only political conservative in my entire family. My Dad used to bring me to work ALL the time, even on weekends – and I would meet all his co-workers, drink coffee and play with his office supplies. My conversion started when I got my first paying job – programming UNIX shell scripts for a high-tech corporation while I was still a teenager – and that was my lowest paying job ever. One look at my pay check and I was through with the government and their lousy payroll taxes. I didn’t see them in my office helping me to debug and test –  so why did they deserve any of my money? I let my grades slide to keep working right through college (until grad school). I always valued working and saving and investing more than education. It’s the pattern you learn from watching your father work – the dignity of labor – the joy of independence – the ability to share with those in need. Work makes you a conservative.

You can friend Tim here on Facebook.

BONUS:

Marco Rubio responds to Democrat Harry Reid’s comments that no Hispanic person can be a Republican.

Marco Rubio is a Hispanic Republican who is about to win a federal Senate seat. I have been following him since his election announcement.