In a House of God on Martin Luther King Day, Stanley Glover's students stand and deliver.
"Excuses are tools of incompetence," one student confidently proclaims, standing in front of the Church.
They call themselves The Gentlemen's Quest.
It's a group made up of Plant City Middle and High School Students, who perform high energy motivational speeches at venues all over the state.
"Gentlemen's Quest is a organization... young men aspiring to be gentlemen, respectable gentlemen," says Glover who took over the group seven years ago at Marshall Middle School where he currently teaches.
Glover teaches the students how to organize their thoughts, deliver speeches with high energy, and command attention in front of an audience. When you meet these young men, some of whom aren't even teens yet, they look you right in the eye and firmly shake your hand as they state their name.
But before these young men unleashed their talent, they struggled to find their voice.
"I got lots of referrals and got suspended multiple times," says 14-year-old Jawan Youngblood. Before he joined Gentlemen's Quest, Jawan was in and out of the principals office. But now, he can recite several motivational speeches on command. Glover says he's one of the groups rising stars.
16-year-old Reggie Anderson says performing in front of live audiences gives him power... power that comes with a new found confidence.
"You have a microphone over a thousand people and your speaking your word to them, your inspiration to them, from 2 to 89 years old," he says with the kind of confident smile you normally see on an adult.
The results go far beyond the performance. Most members of Gentlemen's Quest are maintaining at or above a 3.0 GPA. And the ones who are at least on the right track. All of them have plans to attend college, and they will do so with the edge of being veterans public speaking, a skill that can intimidate most professionals in the work force.
"You have to have presence when you walk ins room there should be people turning there head saying who is that," says Glover.
What is the secret to Glover's ability to reach these students?
He says it comes down to two things: time and love.
He treats his students like his own family. In fact, his own teenage son is part of the group.
Glover is transforming his students through power of the spoken word and the transformation is beyond words.
Gentlemen's Quest will have a booth at the upcoming State Fair and will also make an appearance at the Strawberry Festival.
