Homer Hickam, the main character from the movie "October Sky" is a remarkable person who applied all five high five principles to his life. .
Homer applied the principle "Follow Your Heart" by realizing that he didn't want to remain in the small town of Coalwood, he wanted to explore. When Sputnik flew over Coalwood, Homer realized that that was what he wanted to do. He wanted to explore space, and he wanted to build rockets. He realized that below ground, in the mines was not the place for him, he needed to be up, higher than everyone else. Homer knew that the only way out of Coalwood was to win a college scholarship, and he realized that by making it to the National Science Fair, he would have a good chance of getting one. Homer began studying rockets and focusing on learning about them. He learned that he could become a rocket scientist if he worked hard enough toward that goal, and that was what he was set on doing. .
Homer's interest in rockets began when he witnessed Sputnik flying through the sky. He turned to rocket building when he realized that playing football was not for him and it was not what was going to help him to leave Coalwood. Homer took many necessary steps along the way such as making mistakes and befriending new people. Some mistakes that Homer made along the way were blowing up his mother, Elsie Hickam's, fence. Another mistake that Homer made throughout his journey was shooting the rocket toward the mine, making his father very angry. In order to excel in rocket building, Homer realized that he had to befriend people who knew more about them than he did, and he did this by speaking to Quentin. .
There were many things that Homer had to learn in order to build and learn about rockets, how they are built and how they work. He needed to learn everything he could about rockets and he did this by speaking to Quentin and learning from him. Quentin was a smart boy who was very unpopular, but Homer realized that he was really the only person that could help him.
