From 12-year-old meth addict to honors college scholar: The redemption of Ginny Burton

In the beginning, she took classes at South Seattle College, a grown woman taking classes with kids, feeling out of place and awkward, but also inspired and awakened.

It made me recognize how much time I had wasted in my life. And I also recognized that I was actually good at learning. something I enjoyed.

She applied to the University of Washington and was accepted. In 2019 she was awarded a Martin Honor Scholarship to the UW and there before her the path opened up.

She studied political science. And maybe it was then, at the age of 47, surrounded by kids from nice homes with nice parents who attended college parties on weekends and whose paths had been laid out for them since birth, maybe it was then, perhaps for the first time in her life, that Ginny Burton realized just how smart she really was.

I was entering into a bunch of areas I had never experienced before,” she says now. “I had a lot of insecurity at first, I was significantly older than the majority of people I was sitting in classrooms with. And i was reading up to 350 pages a week in a field I had no understanding of.

But she did it, and she excelled.

She made the all-academic team at the university.

She was the 2020 Truman Scholar for the state of Washington.

While all of this was happening, she was working on reconciling her relationship with her husband, Chris Burton, who had been incarcerated and was recently released.

Chris, like Ginny, is clean now, and he has watched and learned as his wife has proven over and over again that for some people, there are no limitations.

He says:

I see a lot of the things behind the scenes, the hard work she puts in, the passion, her fire. She really genuinely wants to help people. She wants to help those at the bottom rise to the top, and I believe that she will.

And she posted to Facebook two stunning before and after photos.

One was taken in a red King County jumpsuit in 2005. Her head was shaved and there were sores from picking at her face during her addiction. She’d been using a quarter ounce of heroin per day when the picture was taken. She looked sad and strung out and infinitely tired.

In the other picture, taken that day with the cap and gown, she looked happy and beautiful and proud and full of bright, endless possibilities.

Next to the two pictures, she wrote these words: