60 Minutes - 12/31/2017: 60 Minutes Presents: Making A Difference

Episode Date: January 1, 2018

How do Make-A-Wish wishes come true?; then, affordable care for those still uninsured; and, Chess instills new dreams in kids from rural Mississippi county. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Months after his interview, Caden thought he was getting this plaque just for being a Make-A-Wish volunteer. Make-A-Wish October 11, 2014. Caden Erickson, your wish has been granted. You're going to Australia. There's been a lot of debate about Obamacare and whether the government should cover every American. Millions have signed up for it, but we found many can't afford to get on board. Y'all come on in out of the rain. Hello, Mr. Hank. How are you doing?

For a fortunate few, there is the health wagon. Hold your breath for me. Who are these people who come into the van? They are people that are in desperate need. They have no insurance, and they usually wait, we say, until they are train wrecks. Until a couple of summers ago, the ancient game of chess was still mostly a mystery to the folks of rural Franklin County, Mississippi. What's this called? So imagine everyone's surprise when a tall stranger arrived from Memphis to bring chess

to the country. I was like, what? Why would somebody come down here? Two years later, a chess boom is underway in the unlikeliest of places. People said that country kids couldn't learn chess. And? We proved them wrong. We proved them wrong. Good evening. I'm Bill Whitaker. Welcome to 60 Minutes Presents. Tonight, in this season of giving, we celebrate stories of Americans whose generosity extends all year long. We begin with Make-A-Wish. If you could be anything, go anywhere, meet anyone, what would you wish for? The Make-A-Wish Foundation has been asking seriously ill children that question for more than 35 years.

Make-A-Wish became famous by making dying children's final wishes come true. A child doesn't have to be terminally ill anymore to get a wish. Last year, the organization granted 15,000 wishes. They cover a broad range. Some children get to meet famous athletes. One had much of San Francisco pretend he was Batman for a day. Another chose to jump from an airplane. We wanted to find out what leads to these wondrous moments. Make-A-Wish is a growing organization that spent more than $200 million donated dollars on wishes last year. It's headquartered in Phoenix, has more its most active chapters in the northeast corner of Arkansas. As we first reported back in 2015, we discovered a place where, despite persistent poverty, we found inspiring generosity.

Thank you. You're fine. Thank you. You're fine. Appreciate you so much. They begin at dawn. One day a year, hundreds of volunteers fan out across northeast Arkansas to raise money at street corners. Good morning, man. Thank you all. In schools. Their goal?

To get enough money on this one day to grant every wish for the area's sickest children. Volunteers Christy Matthews and Dana Johnson have run this fundraiser every year since 1999. I mean, it literally just exploded every year we would add another town. This is small-town America? They're very small towns, 600, 700 people. A handful will change at a time. As this day's donation deadline approaches, groups of volunteers race to the local radio station to announce their town's total, down to the penny. Give me a number.

$8,468.62. $25,301. $12,054.55. And the big finish is just moments away. Stand by. The total tally from northeast Arkansas is the big story on the seven o'clock news. What do we have here? 323. That's 323,000, enough to grant more than 30 wishes donated from places with little to spare. In Harrisburg, 40% live in poverty, but this town of 2,000

still contributed $25,000. The wishes were going just to children who were dying, and that's no longer the case? You know, we talk about it not being a last wish, but we create lasting wishes and memories that these families can take on forever. Hi, Caden. Caden Erickson is fighting a deadly type of leukemia. At his interview as a potential recipient, he thought his wish was a long shot. My number one wish choice is to go to Australia. Awesome.

Folks here make granting the wish a big surprise. Months after his interview, Caden thought he was getting this plaque just for being a Make-A-Wish volunteer. Make-A-Wish October 11, 2014. Caden Erickson, your wish has... Your wish has been granted. Hey, Caden, you're going to Australia.

His mother, Jeannie. He was just shaking the plaque, and his little legs were just doing a little happy dance in the chair, and it was something pretty special. You must have been surprised. I was the most surprised I've ever been in my life. I'm so excited for you, you know it? Kendra Street choreographed Caden's surprise. When not playing fairy godmother,

she's teaching at Marmaduke Elementary School. Everyone at the school chipped in to pay for Caden's wish. Many turned out to share the revelation. I get to go to Austin! I get to go to Australia! He was excited, he was grateful, and he knew what it meant for him and his family. Thank you, everybody. Caden had endured two excruciating bone marrow transplants.

When he, his parents, and four siblings hit the beach in Australia, they hoped he'd beaten the cancer. When he, his parents, and four siblings hit the beach in Australia, they hoped he'd beaten the cancer. The highlight of his trip? Got to hold a koala. Did he like put his arms around you? It was like a hug. It was about as heavy as a baby and it would put the claws here and the claws here and so it was like you were getting hugged by a koala. You kind of get attached to the koalas. Did it make you forget for a while that you were sick? Yes, it made me feel a little bit normal, more normal than I've been for a while.

Feeling normal didn't last long. Shortly after returning home, Caden learned his cancer had returned for the third time. As we settled in for our interview, his mom, Jeannie, adjusted the medication he needs. It's pumped into his body next to his heart. You're in quite a struggle with this disease. There are some bad things in my body that are kind of stubborn.

I think you're kind of stubborn yourself. Thank you, I think. Caden is so stubborn that after deliberating for a week, he decided to undergo a third agonizing bone marrow transplant. The previous two were so difficult, his parents didn't want to force him to go through it again. How did you make that decision? Would I rather just die or would I have a chance of living? It was a tough decision to make.

Because the therapy makes you feel bad? It can make me feel bad. It can hurt me. It could do more harm than help. So I'm just hoping this time they will get rid of it for good. Caden's wish granter, Kendra Street, was devastated when she learned his cancer had come back. You have an attachment with your kids, and Caden's one that I've really attached to and I've gotten to keep in touch with him. And so seeing him have to go through that again, it's just painful.

He's just a really amazing kid. Let's give Kendra a round of applause. You see, Kendra had survived her own fight with cancer. Back when she was in high school, she had her wish granted. The Make-A-Wish Foundation is sending you to the Atlanta Braves. Getting to meet the Atlanta Braves was thrilling, she says, but... Not to underestimate what my wish was for me, but if I had to sacrifice having my wish to be able to

give it to someone else, I would definitely be willing to give it to someone else. Being the grantor of the wish. Yes. Is the better end of the deal. Absolutely. You get to give that joy. You get to pass it on to someone else. The same chapter passed it on to Gavin Grubbs. He suffers from debilitating muscular dystrophy, and his wish was to meet race car champion Joey Logano. The day we met them outside Charlotte, Joey took Gavin for a spin. They met seven years ago and have become so close they call or text each other every week.

Can you see anymore? I can't see. Gavin was a groomsman at Joey's wedding. It all began back when Gavin was eight. Because my girl, she is singing you to the guitar. Oh, my God. When Gavin was eight. Because my career is saving you to the Daytona. At a school assembly, Gavin learned he'd get his wish to go to Daytona and meet his hero. Then it got better. Logano had flown to Arkansas to be part of Gavin's surprise. Gavin may have a serious disease, but as you'll see, he doesn't take himself too seriously.

So Gavin, tell me, you are fighting a rare form of muscular dystrophy. Yes, sir. How does it affect you? The main thing is I don't have the strength of a normal kid my age. Obviously, I'm in a wheelchair, but it's not all sad because when you've got a disability, people give you free stuff. They let you do cool things. I'm not saying I take advantage of it, but yeah, I take advantage of it. And sometimes I feel a little bad for taking advantage of it, but you know, it's

worth it. I'm not this idiot. It's okay, no pressure. Gavin gives back, too. He helps raise money for new Wish kids every year. It feels good to help other kids. That, to me, is maturity beyond your years. You take advantage of the stuff that comes your way, as you should, but you also give back. Make-A-Wish began back in 1980. Seven-year-old Chris Gracious, dying from leukemia, told his parents he wanted to be a police officer.

Arizona police made him an officer for a day. The power of his wish launched a movement. Are there wishes you can't grant? The one wish that's the hardest to say I can't do is, can you make me well? That's a tough one. What does that do to you? Breaks your heart. Thank you so much. Thank you. Years before she became a volunteer, getting well had been Kendra Street's first wish. At the time, she thought her cancer was fatal. Yes. She was one of those that her first wish was to make me well.

So I want to live long enough for my mom to see me graduate high school. She was a senior that year. They remind you that the little things that we think as adults are so traumatic are so small. I mean, when you think about what these kids are going through, they may not see their next birthday. Kendra saw her next birthday and since then 15 more. Her cancer remains in remission. At Marmaduke, where she teaches, the whole school takes part in Make-A-Wish. They just understand the power of a wish. It's just once they saw the first wish granted here,

our kids wanted to help give that to someone else. And we're a tiny, tiny school that's raised, last year we raised $15,000. That's incredible. It plays a huge part of who our kids grow up to be. I don't want to overstate this in any way, but did the trip to Australia bolster caden's will to live having australia with him having those memories talking about that it kind of gives him fuel to fight sometimes when i'm sad i can think of all the happy things I did in Australia and how amazing it was.

You're not going to let this cancer win. Thank you. You saw how courageous Caden was, but unfortunately this story has a very sad ending. His cancer was relentless. Shortly after our interview, Caden died. Sometimes historic events suck. But what shouldn't suck is learning about history. I do that through storytelling. History That Doesn't Suck is a chart-topping history-telling podcast chronicling the epic story of America, decade by decade. Right now, I'm digging into the history of incredible infrastructure projects of the 1930s, including the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, and more.

The promise is in the title, History That Doesn't Suck, available on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. While the Trump administration and Republican Congress have tried to eliminate Obamacare, including the recent repeal of the individual mandate, millions of people were already unable to afford the health care exchanges. The states were supposed to help them by expanding Medicaid, the government insurance for the very poor. But 18 states declined. In those states, 4 million people are falling into a gap. They make too much to qualify as destitute for Medicaid,

but not enough to buy insurance. As Scott Pelley first reported in April 2014, we met some of these people when he tagged along in a busted RV called the Health Wagon. Medical mercy for those left out of Obamacare. The tight folds of the Cumberland Mountains mark the point of western Virginia that splits Kentucky and Tennessee, the very center of Appalachia, a land rich in soft coal and hard times. Around Wise County, folks are welcomed by storefronts to remember what life was like before unemployment hit nine percent. The roads are narrow and windy curves, so it's not easy to

drive the bus. This is Teresa Gardner's territory. She can't be more than 5'4", but she muscles the bus through the hollers. Death to the complaints of a 13-year-old Winnebago that's left its best miles behind it. I have a problem seeing it. You really can't see it. The wipers are nearly shot and the defrosters out cold. There you go. You can see a little better now. I understand there's a hole in the floorboard here somewhere. Yes, it's right over there, so don't get in that area. The old truck

may be a ruin, but like most RVs, it's pretty good at discovering America. Gardner and her partner, Paula Mead, are nurse practitioners aboard the HealthWagon, a charity that puts free health care on the road. How many patients did we have on the schedule today? He was going to see what he can free up for us. The HealthWagon pulls up in parking lots across six counties in southwestern Virginia. Y'all come on in, how the rain? It's not long before the waiting room is packed. Hello, Mr. Hank, how are you doing? And two exam rooms are full. Hold your breath for me. With advanced degrees in nursing,

Gardner and Mead are allowed to diagnose illnesses, write prescriptions, order tests, and x-rays. On average, there are 20 patients a day. That's recently up by 70%. The health wagon is a small operation that started back in 1980. It runs mostly on federal grants and corporate and private donations. Blood pressure been high before? Just want to get aggravated. Who are these people who come into the van?

They are people that are in desperate need. I just want to get aggravated. Who are these people who come into the van? They are people that are in desperate need. They have no insurance, and they usually wait, we say, until they are train wrecks. Their blood pressures come in, emergency levels. We have blood sugars come in, 500s, 600s, because they can't afford their insulin. But why do they not see a doctor or a nurse before they become, as you call it, train wrecks? Because they don't have any money. They don't have money to pay for labs. They don't have money to go to an ER.

And these are very proud people. You go to the ER, you get a $3,500 bill. And then what do you do? You're given a prescription. You can't feel it. That's why they're train wrecks. They have nowhere else to go. Glenda Moore had nowhere to go but the ER when the pain in her leg became unbearable. Her job at McDonald's making biscuits didn't include insurance that she could afford.

The only doctor that would see me, you had to have $114 up front just to be seen. What does $114 mean to your monthly budget? Oh my gosh, that's half of my weekly pay. I make $7.80 an hour. My paycheck was about, after taxes, about $475 every two weeks. The pain was from a blood clot. She needed Lovenox, a clot buster that costs about $500 for a full treatment. Was she on Lovenox when a clot buster that costs about $500 for a full treatment. Was she on Lovenox when she was discharged from the hospital? Paula Mead got the call from the ER, which didn't want to bear the cost. The health wagon had the drug for free, and there was no charge for some stern medical advice.

You are going to die if you don't quit smoking. And it could be within a week. You need to stop now. Okay. Okay. She took the advice to stop smoking and took Lovenox, but one day she felt so bad she went back to the ER. And they did a CAT scan and an X-ray and found the blood clot had went to my lung, but they also saw another mass on my lung and then transported me to a bigger hospital.

They found the lesions in my brain. So I was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and brain cancer. What are the doctors telling you? I start my treatment on Monday, the brain radiation. And he seems very, I mean, he seemed optimistic. Are you hopeful? I am. I have been. I don't know. I just, I feel very hopeful. Hope, especially when the odds are long, has always been essential to survival in Appalachia. The recovery from the Great Recession hasn't arrived. In coal these days, they just take the top off the mountain,

and you don't need many men for that. Around here, about a thousand have been laid off in the last two years. Twelve percent of the folks don't have enough to eat, and we met them waiting for their number at Zion Family Ministries Church, where a charity called Feeding America was handing out just enough to get through a week, if you stretch. 1,654 lined up, a parking lot of possibilities for Gardner, Mead, and the health wagon. They've known these people, and each other, most their lives. You've been together since 8th grade?

Yes. Why do you do this work? Because somebody has to. You know, there's people here, you know, we always, we had dreams, we wanted to move away from here. We all, you know, we did. And then we come back and we saw the need. And actually, there's a vulnerable population here that's different from the rest of America. I mean, there are people, you can replicate this, but we're kind of forgotten. There's no one here to take care of them but us. These patients would be taken care of in the 32 states

that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare. The federal government pays the extra cost to the states for three years. But Virginia and the others that opted out feared the cost in the future could bankrupt them. So health wagon patients we met have fallen through this unintended gap. Do you have insurance? No, ma'am. Okay.

Have any of you tried to sign up for the president's health insurance plan? No. Why not? I can't afford it. I can't either. Sissy Cantrell was laid off from a Head Start center. She's been suffering from migraines and seizures. I cry for no reason at all.

Have you been seeing a counselor? No. Okay. She came away from the health wagon with medication. Okay. Brittany Phipps works more than 50 hours a week, but that's two part-time jobs, so there's no insurance for her diabetes. So you're getting your insulin through the health wagon?

I am now, yeah. And if that wasn't available, where would you get the insulin? I don't know. Walter Laney's diabetes blinded him in one eye and threatens the other. The health wagon stabilized him and set him up with a specialist. Hey, Walter, Dr. Isaacs. How's it going? It's going pretty good. How have your sugars been?

Okay. They got my blood sugars back under control before this year. I was in the hospital three, four times, and this year I ain't been in none since I've been seeing them. If it hadn't been for them, I don't think I'd be here today. Outside the church where they were handing out food, we met Dr. Joe Smitty, a lung specialist who's the health wagon's volunteer medical director. This is a third world country of diabetes, hypertension, lung cancer, and COPD.

Dr. Smitty drives a second health wagon, a tractor-trailer x-ray lab. I guess they taught you something about radiology and all of that in medical school. Did they teach you how to drive an 18-wheeler? I did have to go to tractor-trailer school, and it took a long time. Was that harder than medical school in some ways? It was very difficult to get anyone to insure a doctor to drive a tractor-trailer. Insurance companies didn't believe me. Hold it. His x-ray screen is a window on chronic, untreated disease, including black lung from the mines.

We've seen co-workers' pneumoconiosis, symphysema, COPD, enlarged hearts. There's 15 of the 26 had significant abnormalities here today. Just today? Just today. But when they leave your health wagon, they still don't have health insurance. How do they get treated for these things that you're finding? We negotiate. We can talk to the hospital system. We don't leave any patient unattended. We raise money for them. You find a way. We will find a way. They found a way to get Glenda Moore radiation

for her brain cancer, but she'd been a smoker for 25 years, and she died three months after our interview. You don't like this idea of receiving charity? No. Oh, I hate it. My dad was in the military, and when he was diagnosed with cancer, he was taken care of. And I don't know, I just always assumed, you know, that's how it would work. Do you think things would have been different if you'd had an opportunity to go to a doctor more often? Oh, definitely. I know it would be different. The outreach to all the people like Glenda Moore cost the health wagon about a million and a half dollars a year. A third of that is from those federal grants and the rest from donations.

Doctors, volunteer, and pharmaceutical companies donate drugs. But when we were with them... We got no electricity like on the house side. They sure could have used a new truck battery. There it goes. Yay! Can we give you all a free flu shot while you're here for helping us? Need a free flu shot, baby?

These are the ones I think we need to focus on. Teresa Gardner and Paula Mead apply for grants. And travel to churches, praying for donations and passing the plate. Are there days you say to yourself, I can't do this anymore? Oh, every day. Not every day. I shouldn't say every day. There are a lot of days that you go home, you're so frustrated because we're writing

grants till 10 o'clock at night. We're begging for money and you're almost in tears because we're like, okay, what are we going to do? Because I've got a family too. And it gets frustrating. It gets hard. It's enough to wear you out, Teresa. We're pretty beat down by the end of the day on most days,

but we do get more out of it than we ever give. When you look at it practically, you think, what in the world am I thinking? But then I have that one patient that may come in and say, couldn't bring you anything, not been able to pay you anything. Here's a quilt I want to give you. And, I mean, when they do that and they're so heartfelt and they put their arms around you, I don't know what I'd do without you. So you're doing a lot better.

It lets you think, okay, I was put here for a purpose. And you can do it another day. They're a blessing to us. Well, thank you. Y'all are a blessing to us. It's them, and that's what touches our heart. Since this story first aired, Meade and Gardner have a new health wagon, and it's logged a lot of miles. Virginia still has not expanded Medicaid, and we have this sad news.

Walter Laney died of complications from his diabetes. digital key on my phone. Oh. And I can check it remotely on the Kia Connect app. I heard it also comes in a hybrid and a plug-in hybrid? It does, with a quiet ride and unbelievable fuel economy. The new Kia Sportage is here. Visit kia.ca to learn

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or bull-side. Order yours on the Tim's app today at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Chess has been around for 1,500 years, but until a couple of summers ago, the ancient game was still mostly a mystery to the folks of rural Franklin County, Mississippi. Few had ever played chess before. Many confused it with checkers. A chess board was as out of place in the county as a skyscraper. But as Sharon Alfonsi first reported in March, that all changed when a tall stranger arrived from Memphis to bring chess to the country with a belief that the game could transform a community. He was initially met with bewilderment. Who was this six-foot-six outsider, and why would anyone come to Franklin County to teach chess?

Two years later, a chess boom is underway in the unlikeliest of places. Tucked deep in the southwest corner of Mississippi lies remote Franklin County, where the trains don't stop anymore. Half the county is covered by a national forest. The other half, it seems, by churches. This is the buckle of the Bible Belt. 7,000 people live here, and no one's in a hurry. There are only two stoplights in the entire county, and one elementary school.

What's this called? So imagine everyone's surprise when Dr. Jeff Buelington showed up at school to teach the kids of Franklin County a new subject, chess. So everybody say, checkmate. Checkmate. Before Dr. B came to town, had you played chess before? I didn't have a clue how to move the pieces or nothing. All the time I saw it was on TV. Donovan Moore, Braden Farrell, Parker Wilkinson, and Benson Sheck-Snyder

didn't know what to make of Dr. B as he's known when he first appeared in 2015. What did you think of Dr. B when you first met him? The 12-foot man. The 12-foot man. Whenever he came into the room saying he was planning on teaching us chess, I was like, what? Why would somebody come down here? In the middle of nowhere. You're a logical guy and it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

If there are people there, it's not nowhere. This is somewhere. It's just a somewhere that doesn't get a lot of attention. Jeff Buelington was lured to Franklin County by a wealthy benefactor who wishes to remain anonymous. The benefactor had seen how Buelington had molded chess champions in Memphis in one of the most distressed zip codes in America and wondered if chess could take hold in the country. Where can you put the king? He convinced Buelington to give a few demonstration lessons in Franklin County. Does that stop him from coming here? Afterwards, I was asked, hey, what do you think?

Do you think these kids have it? Could you have a chess program here? Yeah, of course. They're as smart as any other kids I've ever met. Motivated by the challenge, Buelington signed a 10-year contract with a benefactor and left the city for the country. What is he doing? He's x-raying the king. Buelington has taught chess for the better part of 25 years.

What's so wonderful about the bishop, and why might we think of it as an archer? Like, for instance... He may not be a grandmaster, but he's a master of using chess to tell a narrative, especially with beginners. This is a story about a little girl and a stranger and the little girl's daddy. Elizabeth and the Stranger is just my adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood to the chessboard. Elizabeth needs to get down here to E1 where school is, where she'll be safe. It involves just simply teaching how a pawn moves and a king moves. Oh, no. Is she going to make it?

I told you this is a bad idea. I remember my partner in this project saying to me, we'd have maybe 12 kids playing chess. And he didn't know what to expect. And how many kids do you have playing chess right now? Well, a couple hundred. Hey, how are you? Students flock to Buelington in part

because at heart, he's one of them. He grew up in rural Indiana and identifies with kids who have to feed the chickens, count tarantulas as pets, and have different tastes in food. What do you like to eat? Fried rattlesnake. Fried rattlesnake? I go to my house, if we ever find a rattlesnake in a course of like a week or so, you're getting some fried rattlesnake. Buelingtons opened up a new world to his kids. This is a famous game by Morphy against Count Isoward and Duke of Brunswick, who's played in Paris. This is Paris.

We teach history. We teach geography. We teach science. We teach math. We teach science. We teach math. We teach it all using the chessboard. Bobby Poole is a part-time preacher and a full-time assistant chess coach for Buelington. Poole says there were doubts that Buelington could succeed in Mississippi. All the statistics, everything you look at, you know, Mississippi is the poorest, it's the dumbest, it's the fattest. We

know that the rest of the nation has that conception of us. People said that country kids couldn't learn chess. And? He showed them wrong. We proved them wrong. Proof came last year in Starkville, where Buelington's team of mostly elementary school kids from Franklin County faced off against much older high school players at the Mississippi State Championships. Rebecca Griffin was in the fifth grade. What was their reaction when they saw you, a little fifth grader, sitting across the table from them? One of them started bragging to their friends about how he got easy pickings. Is that a little scary, playing somebody who looked that much older than you?

I didn't really think about it until somebody told me, you played a guy with a beard? You guys roll in and they say, who are these kids, right? They were basically trying to say we were a joke because we were kids. But after the game, we usually beat them and they were very shocked. Don't you guys feel bad you beat all those older kids? No. Not at all. I don't want that to make me seem like a cruel person,

but I really am just okay with crushing people's spirits. In the end, Franklin County dominated the state championships. What happened is a bunch of hillbillies beat the snot out of a bunch of really highly educated, sophisticated people. So that's what happened. Mitch Hamm was among the many parents in Starkville. He thinks the victory served as a milestone for Franklin County's kids. That was very sobering for them to suddenly realize, wow, we are good.

So them having the realization of their own potential was a beautiful moment. How did the teachers, the other teachers react? Over the course of my career in teaching chess, people say things like, I did not know that he could do something like that, or even something as simple and as crass as I did not know he was smart or she was smart or something like that. What does that tell you? It tells me some people got it wrong, that some kids have been underestimated or written off for reasons that are false. Chess has helped Buelington's players see there's more to themselves than they've seen before. Chess is like something that I'm really good at for once.

Has it changed you at all? It has. My grades have gone up. Your grades have gone up? Oh, my grades used to be like medium, low Bs, now they're A's and high Bs. I feel like chess could take us anywhere, but it's not about where it takes us, it's about how far it takes us. Last year, only seven of the 93 graduates from Franklin County High School went on to a four-year college. But every chess player we spoke to plans to attend college someday. It's really shocked me how far he's came.

Jennifer Rutland is Braden's mom. She runs the First and Main Cafe, one of the few places in the county that serves a hot meal. She believes her son won't be flipping burgers for a living. Is it fun to see your kids dream a little bigger than the county line. Yes. So big that it's almost like, Brian, come on, get real. Yeah. You know, it just gets so big. You always want to see your kids go further. And I think chess can be a vehicle to take them there. This gives them a window at a young age that, hey, there's a whole world out there.

I don't need to set my goals at making $8 an hour. I need to set my goals at whatever I want them to be. Chess has filled a social void and given Main Street a pulse. Last fall, a new chess center opened in the middle of Meadville, the county seat. Do you feel like chess has made the community more hopeful? Certainly parts of it, yeah. Right. I mean, this flower hasn't bloomed yet. It's just starting to, right? There's a lot yet to come. The chess center has become like a beacon in the county. Each day after school, kids who have the desire and aptitude receive more instruction from Buelington. So what does black do?

They've become so immersed in the game with its infinite number of possible moves that when these students finish playing chess, they go home and play more chess. Can the best chess player in the world come from Franklin County? Maybe. Absolutely. It's super possible. Before they could take on the world, they would have to face the nation. We'll take care of them. Last December, 33 of Franklin County's chess wonders and their parents

gathered in the school parking lot. To begin a 10-hour journey to Nashville for their biggest test yet, the national championships. As day... Queen G7, excellent. ...turned into night, Buelington and his students were lost in what they call the chess dimension. Where are we? I don't know where we are. We're just in the middle of it. We're in the middle of problem number nine. That's all I know. Preparing in their own language.

Knight d4, attacking the queen and threatening queen takes h3, check. For what lay ahead, a weekend of intense chess. More than 1,500 players from 644 schools gathered in a giant ballroom at Opryland. Please shake your opponent's hand. For seven rounds of chess over three days. Every grade, K through 12, was vying for a national title. The best teams come from the best schools in New York City. And two hours into the tournament, it appeared as if little Franklin County was overmatched. After round one, the kids from Mississippi had lost 30 of their first 32 games. You know, it's a real struggle, and they're going to learn to struggle at this level,

and they're learning that they have to struggle at a different level than they ever have before. What's the feeling when you walk in here as a player, as a coach, as a parent? It's a deep, agonistic experience, right? Deep, agonistic experience. It? Deep, agonistic experience. Yeah, it's real, true competition based on skill alone, right? You look around and you can see it in the parents' faces as much as the kids, that there's something significant at stake here. Nervous parents from other programs tried to sneak a closer peek into the ballroom, desperate for any news. After their shaky start, Franklin County's players bore down,

taking more time, probing for openings, watching for threats. A Buelington mantra played in their heads, let your opponent show you how they'd like to lose. Today's the last day. It's the hardest day. By Sunday, with the final two rounds looming, Franklin County's fifth and sixth graders were hovering near the top ten. Everybody needs to fight for those points today. We need them very much. Parker Wilkinson, Braden Farrell, and Benson Sheck-Snyder all delivered for Franklin County.

That left Donovan Moore, who was mired in a two-and-a-half-hour struggle against a higher-rated opponent from Kentucky. On the verge of victory, Donovan was asked for a draw. He said no. His opponent snapped, the tension of the event bursting to the surface. Donovan Moore eventually won, boosting Franklin County's fifth graders to number eight in the surface. Donovan Moore eventually won, boosting Franklin County's fifth graders to number eight in the country. Making their debut to the stage, Franklin County Upper Elementary. The sixth graders placed 10th, two grades in the nation's top 10, only a year and a half after Jeff Buelington first showed up to introduce chess to a small county in Mississippi. One thing that I don't think I say enough is thank you for teaching us

all this. What are they capable of? Somewhere in the top three, at least. You think you can stick it out for eight more years in Franklin County? I won't even think of it as sticking it out. What do you think of it as? I think of it as doing what I want to do, being in a place I like to be. I'm Bill Whitaker. We'll be back next week with a brand new edition of 60 Minutes. Happy New Year.