Welcome to another edition of “Behind the Scenes of The Dream Doers Series.”
The Dream Doers and the Summer of Secrets begins on the last day of sixth grade for Alex and Tyler. But in today’s Behind the Scenes Webisode, Parent Profile Edition, we’re going to go waaaay waaaay waaaay behind the scenes to give you a chance to get to know…Alex’s mom!
This Parent Profile Series started last week with Tyler’s mom, Rachel Davis. Today, we meet Alex’s mom, Anna Wilkins.
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Anna was born and raised on a farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Her two older brothers and one younger sister and Anna all had chores they had to do every day to help out on the farm.
Her brothers and sister didn’t mind the hard work, but Anna hated it. She was the “rebel” in the family who also hated going to church and going to school. She wanted to make her own choices, live her own life and chase her own dreams.
Her big dream was to be a supermodel. She didn’t care what she had to do or who she had to hurt to make her dream happen. So at age 16, she stole money from her parents and ran away to New York City.
She made up a new name for herself, told everyone she was 18, dyed her hair from brown to blonde and cut it from waist length to just below her shoulder blades.
At her third modeling audition, Anna caught the big break she needed to succeed: a modeling agent discovered her, signed her to a two-year-contract and arranged for her to live in a nice apartment with a few other models.
For two years, Anna lived the life of glamour she always dreamed of. But the life of glamour she imagined wasn’t as fulfilling as she thought it would be. The worst part was having to constantly lie about her name and age and true identity.
Nobody knew who she really was, and she missed her family. Only she felt too guilty about the way she left to ever return home. She was afraid they wouldn’t want her back.
Since she couldn’t return home, she wanted to do something that made her feel connected to her family. If she had stayed at home, her father would have taken her on a two-week backpacking trip along the Appalachian Trail when she graduated high school.
In May of what would have been her senior year of high school, she decided to take that trip and convinced three friends to go with her.
They had been on the trail for eleven days when the accident happened. One of her friends ran out of water and tried to take Anna’s water bottle from her. They fought for control of the water bottle on a very steep part of the trail.
As Anna’s friend jerked the bottle away from her, Anna lost her balance and fell over the edge onto a ledge twenty-five feet below the trail.
Instead of trying to help her, her friends ran away, scared they’d killed her.
Fortunately, they ran into another hiker on the trail and told him what happened before continuing their escape.
The hiker’s name was Rick Wilkins, known in The Dream Doers and the Summer of Secrets as Alex’s dad.
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Tune in to next week’s “Behind the Scenes” webisode, to learn more about Rick Wilkins, how he rescued Anna and why they got married and raised their family in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
To Your Dreams,
Bonnie Jean
P.S. In case you haven’t yet been in front of the scenes of The Dream Doers series, it starts with The Dream Doers and the Summer of Secrets. In this young adult novel, best friends Alex and Tyler are forced to battle bullies, face their fears and keep strange secrets the summer they learn to do what they dream. You can hear the whole “Front of the Scenes” story for FREE. Just visit TheDreamDoers.com and fill out a super short form. Enjoy the story!
