The Gates family attended the University Congregational Church, where the Reverend Dale Turner was pastor. Each year Turner promised to buy dinner at Seattle’s 606-foot-tall Space Needle restaurant for all those in the confirmation class who memorized the Sermon on the Mount.
Although 31 others stuttered and stammered their way through chapters 5, 6, and 7 of the Book of Matthew, Turner was astounded when Bill learned the passages on a family car trip to the coast and then delivered a flawless recitation.
“I needed only to go to his home that day to know that he was something special. I couldn’t imagine how an 11-year-old boy could have a mind like that. And my subsequent questioning of him revealed a deep understanding of the passage,” Turner said.Turner conceded that Gates probably didn’t learn the verses for their spiritual value, but because he loved a challenge.
p. 3-4, Bill Gates Speaks, by Janet Lowe, 1998
Bill Gates in High School
Like all teenagers, Gates and his friends looked for ways to seize power from their teachers:
“The greatest scam we discovered was that by getting the job doing high school scheduling, we could decide exactly what boys and girls were in our classes, and that was an incredible reward. It really motivated us to learn how to write interesting software.”During the summer Gates and Allen earned approximately $5,000 in computer time by programming class schedules.
p. 12, Bill Gates Speaks, by Janet Lowe, 1998
No comments:
Post a Comment