Rambo Encourages High School Students To ‘Fight On’

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation supervising producer David Rambo visited Elsinore High School in Wildomar, California last Thursday, May 6 as part of the school’s yearlong “Fight On” writing project.

“Fight On” was created by counselor Cameron Lymon to give seniors a chance to reflect on their lives and understand one another. Each graduating student wrote about a past or present struggle they faced, and the essays will be gathered into a book that will serve as a tribute to the class of 2010. “Really what this is all about is something for my seniors to leave behind to help future students and educators better understand that kids go through stuff,” Lymon told Southwest Riverside News Network. “It’s to give them that sense of pause.” He added to the Press-Enterprise, “Even after they’re gone, they’ll have an impact on the campus. The whole premise was everybody has a story, everybody has a fight.”

Before he came to speak to the students, Rambo read about 50 of the senior essays. “I was knocked out by reading them; by their honesty and their humanity and the views of the world that come from them,” he shared. “I thought I had a tough time in high school; but not like these journal entries. It is a terrible time, a horrible time (being an adolescent).”

Rambo spoke to about 200 seniors at the high school. He told his own life story, explaining that he wanted to be in show business from the time he was very young. However, his parents’ divorce meant there was no money for him to attend college. “So I packed up and moved to New York City,” Rambo said. “And I didn’t let go of my dream.”

Playing piano in night clubs led to acting, and acting led Rambo to Los Angeles. When that career path didn’t pan out, he got into real estate. “Every real estate deal was a play in itself,” Rambo revealed, and it was on the back of an open house flyer that he penned his first script. After battling a potentially-fatal hemoglobin virus for six months and ending up in the hospital, Rambo became a playwright. “It was then that I knew I wanted to write,” he said. “[W]riting is what makes me happy, it’s what I am.”

Rambo wrote a freelance script for CSI before he was offered a full-time job with the series. “That was seven years ago,” he shared. “Many times I felt that was where my life was heading all along.” He added, “When I graduated high school, I never dreamed I would be doing something that would touch 90 million people around the world. Any one of you could do this.”

One thing Rambo regrets about his life is not going to college. He asked the students how many were planning to continue their education, and a majority of the seniors raised their hands. “I’m so proud of that,” Rambo said. “You’re doing something I should have done.” He encouraged them to go to school and to follow their dreams. “Just about everything good that has happened to me was because I had a really good public school education,” Rambo said. “Someone is always going to be prettier, or stronger or whatever. I say so what.”

Sources: Southwest Riverside News Network and Press-Enterprise.