When Jack Clarke was 8 years old, doctors told his parents that he'd likely never walk or talk again.
On Sunday, he walked across the Drake Knapp Center stage to accept his diploma during the Valley High School graduation ceremony.
One of those cheering him on was Valley Principal Tim Miller. The principal and the student have been eating lunch together off and on for six years — since their time together at Stilwell Junior High.
"He is just such an amazing young guy and has a great love of life," Miller said last week. "He's got such a positive outlook on everything he does and transfers that joy to others."
Clarke's medical problems arose in elementary school after a shunt used to drain excess fluid from around his brain — he was born with a condition called hydrocephalus — became infected.
"Everything that could go wrong went wrong," said his mother, Melissa Clarke-Wharff.
Clarke had six strokes in two weeks and spent a month in a coma.
The second half of his third-grade year was spent at an inpatient medical facility. He doesn't remember much of that time, but he does remember the physical therapy he had to endure while attending fourth-grade classes part-time.
"It about emotionally about broke me," his mother said. "I got my motivation and strength from Jack. I saw he was working for this as well. I just didn’t believe that he wasn’t going to be able to walk."
He eventually had 38 leg surgeries to help him regain mobility.
When is was time for Clarke to move to junior high, his family met with Miller, who was principal of Stilwell at the time.
"I saw Tim’s commitment to Jack. He said, 'This kid's got it, and we're going to bring it out of him,'" Clarke-Wharff said
That's when Miller and Clarke first began spending their lunch period together.
"Every lunch, he was there," Clarke said. "I didn’t really know anybody else besides him. He would mingle with the students. I just found that so cool how he was able to do that."
Miller was transferred to Valley High during Clarke's eighth-grade year. But the friendship and lunches resumed two years later on Clarke's first day at Valley High.
The principal said he sits in the cafeteria each day to be accessible to students. He wasn't in the lunchroom just for Clarke, but Clarke was the bonus, he said.
"All the credit goes to Jack," Miller said. "He has a magnetism about him. Anything that people have done to help him, they’ve done because of the way he is."
That help — from family, friends, teachers and doctors — went a long way to getting Clarke to Sunday's graduation ceremony.
The Valley graduate is heading to Des Moines Area Community College in Ankeny next fall.
And he's already got some lunch dates planned this summer with Miller, who is retiring at the end of June.
"We'll see each other one way or another," the principal said. "We said we were going out together."
