Grambling State University is truly diverse. The institution has alumni who are renowned singers, professional athletes and musicians, influential politicians, respected journalists, and successful actors.
Now, another type of alumnus can now be added to this impressive roster – one of Essence Magazine’s 21 most eligible bachelors of 2012.
Shawn M. Bradley-Henderson graduated from Grambling in the summer of 1994. As a student, he was involved in the Student Government Association, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, and Phi Beta Lambda. Despite his active engagement in the duties of these organizations, Bradley-Henderson was able to maintain a 3.5 grade-point average and graduated summa cum laude.
His favorite teachers, while here, were Dr. Emmanuel and Dr. Ann Williams. Bradley-Henderson walked across the stage to earn a degree in business. He currently works as a pharmaceutical sales representative as well as owning his own small business – a promotional marketing group.
Bradley-Henderson credits his experience at Grambling as having helped him to become the man that he is today, “My experience at Grambling has prepared me by leaps and bounds over my contemporaries. The experience has prepared me for success. It has shown me that hard work, dedication, and what’s in a man’s mind is what makes him successful. It has given me the tools to fight when others simply give in. Excellence is what was preached to me, not only at home, but also while at Grambling and that is something that I have carried with me even to this day. Remember, Grambling isn’t only ‘a place where everybody is somebody’ but it makes you somebody!”
Bradley-Henderson was not the first in his family to attend the university. He followed in the footsteps of an extensive list of family members, who made “Tiger Pride” a sort of, tradition, within the family. This tradition lives on, although Bradley-Henderson does not have any children, he has many friends whose children have made the decision to attend the university. Not to forget, his fraternity brothers who still “stomp the yard.” Because of these relationships and the tradition associated with the event, Bradley-Henderson makes a point to come back to homecoming every year.
“I would like everyone to know that with everything that I do, there’s a bigger purpose in mind. It’s never about me. I truly feel that others and I have the right to be unreasonably happy in their lives.
I just hope that as people cross my path, I’m able to touch their lives in such a way as to have them reach beyond their dreams, live more than fulfilled lives and leave a positively impressionable mark on the world.” And as far as the response from America’s bachelorettes, Bradley-Henderson sticks to his “Southern Gentleman” roots, “I’ll let everyone ponder on that. Discretion is always key. But I would caution that it’s never what people assume nor think.” The 39 bachelor will be celebrating his 40th birthday on Dec. 1.