Ole Miss Student Finds Hope, Friendship Through CASA & an Army of Normal Folks

By Alyssa Schnugg

News editor

alyssa.schnugg@hottytoddy.com

Thomas McGaughy admits it took him a little while to trust Erin Smith.

After all, most adults in his life haven’t been trustworthy.

But Smith wasn’t giving up that easy on McGaughy. She saw not only his struggles but also saw a young man with so much potential who didn’t give up on his goals and she was determined to stick with him.

As founder of CASA of North Mississippi, a volunteer organization aimed at improving the lives of and being a voice for foster children, helping McGaughy became more than just an obligation for Smith.

The two became friends.

Smith met McGaughy in 2022. He had been in foster care since he was 5 years old. When he was 8, he was adopted; however, he suffered years of sexual abuse by his adopted brother who eventually went to prison for his abuse.

When he was released due to being found criminally insane and moved back into the house Thomas was living in, Thomas was once again, back in foster care.

Under certain circumstances, children can remain in the foster system until they’re 21, and one of those is being college student. After graduating high school, McGaughy was offered a full scholarship to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.

However, the Mississippi Children Protection Service said he was required by the state to stay in Mississippi. He applied to the University of Mississippi and was accepted.

McGaughy said he was told that his tuition would be covered.

That wasn’t the case.

Wanting to continue his education, McGaughy took student loans to pay for his first two years at Ole Miss. He will be a junior in the fall and now at age 20, he is finally out of the foster system but now has $20,000 in student loan debt.

“I met Thomas at a point in his life where he was really struggling with being able to go to school and just not having anyone that cared about him,” Smith said. “One of the first things I asked him was, ‘Do you have a consistent adult in your life?’ and he said, ‘No.’ I knew that our relationship would continue to build and gain his trust and do whatever I needed to do to support him. And I will do that for the rest of his life. He has become a friend, almost like a son to me.”

He has a job and is working toward a degree in public health with a concentration in community health and a minor in math and psychology. He hopes to either become a biostatistician or a clinical psychologist.

Thanks to the Bill Kinkade Fostering Access & Inspiring True Hope (FAITH) Scholarship award approved by the Mississippi Legislature in 2022, McGaughy’s college tuition should be paid for the next two years; however, he is still left struggling to pay for his first two years.

Smith and McGaughy recently appeared on the national podcast, “An Army of Normal Folks,” with host Bill Courtney, an Ole Miss alumni who is the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary, “Undefeated,” Founder of Classic American Hardwoods, Inc., and author of “Against the Grain.”

Courtney said his podcast is not a fundraising podcast, but after hearing McGaughy’s story, he wanted to help.

“Thomas was reassured that his school would be taken care of and then he gets to Ole Miss and enrolls and then gets told, ‘We kind of lied to you about that.’ So pretty much every adult in his life had led let him down, including the system that was supposed to take care of him. He could have gone to school for free. He had an alternative (from taking school loans) that got taken from him.”

Smith said CASA has raised about $8,000 as of this week to help McGaughty continue his education and to help pay off his debt.

Smith first became involved in CASA while attending Ole Miss herself. She volunteered with the CASA of Memphis before founding CASA of North Mississippi in 2018. CASA serves three counties and 100 percent of Lafayette County children in foster care are being served by CASA and its volunteers.

“We don’t operate successfully as a program without volunteers,” Smith said. “They are the heartbeat of what we do.”

Court Appointed Special Advocates is a national association in the United States that supports and promotes court-appointed advocates for abused or neglected children.

McGaughty is thankful for Smith’s support and Courtney’s interest in his story. For a long time, it was a story he felt he couldn’t speak out loud.

“But now, I feel like it has the power to sort of instill that same perseverance and faith into other people besides myself,” he said. “And that just means the world to me. I just want to inspire other people with my story and hopefully, to just a role model for other foster kids who are thinking about giving up because so many of them don’t even think college is an option.

“I want them to know that it is and sometimes you’re gonna have to fight for it, and it’s going to be greener on the other side, and that’s really all you can hope for.”

To make a donation to CASA and/or McGaughty, click here. If you’d like your donation to go toward McGaughty’s educational costs, indicate that in the area that says “Add a message.”

For more information about CASA and how to become a volunteer, visit their website.