An avid hunter and fisherman Matthew Millsaps recalls a fishing trip with his father, Doug. After loading their boat out of the water near Little Wilbur Dam, they set off for home only to feel a jarring thud smack the back of their truck.
“We thought we’d gotten rear-ended by someone,” Millsaps said. “But the trailer hitch had come loose and the boat and trailer hit us from behind.”
Unexpected events send a shock to everyone’s system, some crueler than others. During his freshman year of high school, Matthew Millsaps was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.
Chemotherapy treatments followed. Well-wishes were sent. The difficulties mounted. A severe allergic reaction to a combination of chemotherapy treatments left Millsaps near death in an intensive care unit.
Today, Millsaps has rebounded. He continues a tough fight against leukemia but refuses to let the disease take his identity. His father works full-time for Ballad Health. His mother Sharon stepped away from her job three years ago to care for her son. He talks proudly of his big sister, Sara, who attends Lee University.
Millsaps also pulls no punches about the challenges he faces. Sickness, isolation, the distance from “friends” after he withdrew from public school, and the missed opportunities most teenagers take for granted.
“I told myself I was going to work hard and prove to them I could do it,” he said. “I’ve missed out on a lot of stuff.”
Millsaps did not miss out on the Drone XL Camp hosted at the Regional Center for Advanced Manufacturing (RCAM) from July 17th to July 20th. A new summer camp developed for high school and college students, Drone XL was created by STREAMWORKS, an educational program powered by Eastman to bring challenging learning opportunities to K-12 students. A generous, anonymous contributor provided the funds for the cost of the camp to ensure Millsaps could attend.
“It was so nice to know someone was willing to do something like this,” said Sharon Millsaps. “He’s been really limited in what he’s been able to do.”
Like so many young men before him, flight intrigued Millsaps. He recognized the role of aviation as a means of transportation and delivery. He started thinking about pursuing the industry as a career while in eighth grade. Homebound schooling required long hours of study whether he felt well or ill. Following a series of setbacks, it was decided to remove Matthew from public school. Sharon guided the process as her son was healthy enough to participate. Through Northeast State’s Adult Education program, Millsaps earned his high school equivalency diploma in October of 2017, and walked the stage in June of this year.
“I was standing there at graduation and realized I needed to start thinking about what I was going to do,” he said. “Flying interested me and people are always going to want to fly.”
Drone XL camp members learned how to control a drone’s movements, the craft’s electronic responses to controls, aerodynamics, and deftly keep a delicate yet complex piece of machinery flying, or in this case racing. In addition to learning the technical perspectives, the campers spent a significant amount of time flying a racing drone in a simulator.
STREAMWORKS guru Dennis Courtney and his band of science aces are determined to bring technical education to young folks looking to become tomorrow’s Elon Musk. He said the camp evolved from the first drone camp STREAMWORKS held earlier this spring at Northeast State’s Regional Center for Advanced Manufacturing.
“These racing drones screech through the sky at 95 miles per hour so you can imagine this is no easy feat to master,” said Courtney, executive director of STREAMWORKS.
Building a drone requires patience. A series of pieces intricately placed together to balance fusing technique with technology gives flight. Drone XL challenged camp participants to build a racing drone instead of a standard drone model. Millsaps and his fellow campers took on frame design, micro-miniature electronics assembly, soldering, and even programming.
“There’s nothing like realizing, ‘I made that’ when you see your drone finished,” Millsaps said. “It was so rewarding to know you have done that, it’s like you’ve won the lottery.”
Courtney noted that while the first camp was geared more towards middle school students, the STREAMWORKS team realized older high school/college age kids could build a complex drone capable of racing at high speeds.
“This is significant because the skills used to build the drones are the same industry relevant skill sets needed in our 21st-century workforce,” said Courtney.
Beyond any illness, Millsaps’ wide smile and eagerness to learn makes him a regular teenager exploring the world. He said his family’s faith and unity brought them through the toughest of times.
“My mom said, ‘Tomorrow is never promised.’ So I try to have to as much fun as I can,” said Millsaps. “I’ve learned a lot in the past four years of being sick.”
A constant Millsaps has enjoyed since his youth are the hunting trips with his father. He has bagged several bucks during deer season in recent years.
“We have so much fun getting to do that,” he said. “It was really cool getting to hang out together before I got sick.”
The camp ended with the participants marking their achievements as drone builders and navigators. Millsaps packed up his own racing drone – presented to him as a gift by Courtney and STREAMWORKS – complete with extra rotors and accessories. He hugged the instructors and his fellow campers as they said their farewells.
Matthew’s chemotherapy treatments ended in July 2016, a year and a half earlier than expected, due to the multi-organ failure he experienced. He still visits the St. Jude Tri-Cities Affiliate Clinic, located in Johnson City, monthly for lab checks, and is a patient of the Gastroenterology Clinic and Heart Institute at LeBohneur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, where he visits every six months. The road ahead remains uncertain. But as Millsaps reflected on his experiences during the week, those thoughts were pushed aside.
Sharon picked her son up at camp. The weekend lay ahead including casting fishing lines in the Nolichucky River with his dad. The hunter, fisherman, teenager, son, brother, and drone racer continued moving forward.
“No kid should ever say, ‘I can’t,’” said Millsaps. “You got to hit it as hard as you can and prove people wrong.”