Clarke Central High School junior Re’al Pogue stands posing in Mell Auditorium on Sept. 7. Re’al has been dancing and singing since before he can remember and still continues to every chance he has. “I really like to sing, dance, do artwork, just be myself. I can play the piano, cook — I do a lot of things,” Re’al said. “It’s to the point where many people just come up to me and be like you should be in this or be in that because you’re really good at this.” Photo by Emma Ramsay
“I feel like most of the songs I have are not just for me. I definitely want to get it out there to benefit people and just have them experience it,” Re’al said. “I know there are certain people that I have met, and they are dealing with the same things I’m dealing with, and just hearing about what I have been doing makes them much more open and understanding to situations.”
Now, singing is not only something Re’al does for fun, but he uses it as an outlet for dealing with his personal struggles.
“Even in my younger ages, I would write songs to help me cope with my mother and our situation,” Re’al said. “We were homeless for I don’t even know how long. I just know we were on the street for a good while. It was difficult going to school and having friends and just talking about certain things.”
Due to difficulty at home, Re’al’s childhood was stripped from him at a young age.
“I became basically an adult at a very young age,” Re’al said. “I had to start learning so quickly because I had to help out the house.”
Clarke Central High School junior Re’al Pogue sings in Mell Auditorium on Sept. 7. Re’al moved to Athens in seventh grade and feels like he has thrived ever since. “’I’ve been in (Clarke County Schools) since 7th grade. It’s just been one big thing after another. To the point where now I can just sit up here and look at the world differently.” Photo by Emma Ramsay
When other kids would be going to amusement parks or the zoo, Re’al was doing all he could to try to support his family.
“(My childhood) was stripped away to the point where, someone asked me ‘Have you ever been to Six Flags or Kings Island?’ and I’m like, ‘No.’ I don’t ever remember going to an amusement park in all my life. I have never gone on a rollercoaster with my family,” Re’al said. “I’ve always had my own sense of adventure. I would always do small things, stupid things. Go out in the woods for hours exploring.”
Re’al, his mother, and younger sister, Rihanna, escaped a domestic abuse situation that forced them to move from Cincinnati, Ohio to LaGrange, Ga.
“How I got down here was basically a domestic violence situation that got out of control and we had to be relocated. We moved originally to LaGrange, Ga.,” Re’al said.
When Re’al and his family arrived to LaGrange, they lived in and out of homeless shelters for a year.
“The shelter we were staying at kicked us out because I turned 12, and apparently that’s when a boy becomes a teenager. So I felt like it was my fault they wouldn’t let us stay,” Re’al said.
“We were there for one year. After my birthday they didn’t want to kick us out automatically, so they just made up a lie and said that we were playing loud rap music. It devastated us to the point where we started staying in motels and hotels, there was a part of time where we stayed in a person’s house. (Eventually) we found out own place and that’s when we finally became stable. That’s when we moved from LaGrange to DeKalb County.”
It was in DeKalb County that Re’al began to experience bullying at school.
“Dekalb county is where we settled down for a few years and I got severely bullied again about certain stuff like I didn’t have nice shoes, nice shirt, stuff like that,” Re’al said.
CCHS science department teacher Debbie Mitchell has known Re’al since seventh grade and has since gotten to know him better through his involvement in agriculture.
“I remember him catching my attention (in class) cause, you know, he’s very lively and a nice guy. Then that summer we started a program, the Kitchen Garden Corps at Clarke Middle School, where you garden for half the time then you cook food half the time then you serve it to the public on Thursday at lunch,” Mitchell said. “He’s definitely a leader. I mean, he’s just always helpful, so when we have a soil lab, he’ll kind of help me clean up.”
Since moving to Athens, Re’al’s music career has taken off. He has performed all over Athens, including at CCHS.
“I sing really every day, most of the time just to practice my vocals. Half the time I don’t really be singing anything. I’m just singing words. If someone just came up to me and said, ‘Hey,’ I would sing, ‘Hey,’ to them,” Re’al said. “I took singing to a whole new level, to the point where I have even performed out in Athens or in school and I’m just like, ‘Wow, I should be a singer.’”
Due to the struggles in Re’al’s past, in his sophomore year, Family Connections and Communications coordinator Rodney Robinson became his mentor.
“He’s a very smart kid. He’s artistic. He likes to do drama, dance and sing and sometimes it gets a little distracting and what I do is just pull him in from time to time to try to get him on task. He’s a good kid,” Robinson said. “I’m really proud of him.”
According to Re’al, he and his family have complicated relationships because of the dark past they share.
“The way my family is set up is that my oldest brother and sister have the same dad. My middle brother and my youngest sister have the same dad. And I don’t have the same dad as any of them,” Re’al said. “It made me feel different; it made me feel like an outcast. I can do everything they can do, and the one thing I can do that they can’t do is sing.”
However, Re’al and his younger sister Rihanna, who is a sophomore at CCHS, are close.
“The only sibling I am close to is my youngest sister Rihanna. She’s the only sibling I can say has been with me the entire span of my life,” Re’al said. “Everyone else has either left or we have had to leave them. I have a big family, we don’t really all talk that much.”
Re’al says he has a difficult relationship with his mother because of her beliefs.
“I am bisexual. My mother feels that religion is more important than it and that I shouldn’t be bisexual, or that I am basically sinning. That has sort of determined my relationship with her. We haven’t talked about it for maybe a year now,” Re’al said. “It’s been hard, you can’t fully say what you want or what you desire. People will just shut you down. You should be able to love anyone you want to, whenever you want to. If there is a God, he should understand that too.”
Clarke Central High School junior Re’al Pogue poses four times, one poses slightly different than the next. Since moving to Athens in seventh grade Re’al has found a wide range of friends. “One of the things I remember vividly in childhood is that I’ve always had a sprinkle (of) friends, but never too many friends. It was just weird and awkward, to the point where when we moved down here it’s completely different,” Pogue said. “I’ve met a lot more people who have (gone) through the same things I went through, who have also felt the way I felt.” Photos by Emma Ramsay
“I’ve known him since middle school and he’s been a cool person ever since. He’s comfortable with like everything. He doesn’t care what people say about him. He’s a good friend,” junior Trey Waters said. “He fights for (his friends) and secures all of our friend group.”
Re’al, hasn’t lived an easy life, but has persevered through his struggles and now has a more optimistic outlook on life and his plans moving forward.
“People have divided themselves into groups that just make no sense. Transgender, bisexual, Bloods, Crips, any type of gang, any type of group that people put themselves in. We are all basically the same on the inside and out. I don’t care if you say skin color is different, you still have five fingers like me, you walk like me, you talk like me, you sound like me. You will fight someone because they are Black, or gay, or just don’t have the same opinion as you,” Re’al said. “At the end of the day, we all believe in different things. I could believe in God, you might not. That doesn’t mean I should fight you for it.”
