Donald Minor, known to many as “the walking miracle,” spoke to a students, faculty and staff in the Culp Auditorium Thursday night as the guest speaker at the annual John P. Lamb Jr. Memorial Lecture.
“I’ve always been known as the redneck speaker,” said Minor because of his blunt habit of telling it like it is.
Minor was born in 1948 in Birmingham, Ala., with hemophilia, a genetically inherited blood-clotting disorder
His mother was unable to provide adequate care for him, so he was sent from foster home to foster home until he finally was placed in Methodist Children’s Home in Selma, Ala.
Minor stayed there until he graduated high school and while there, began using music as his escape since he could only watch other children play, but could not join in due to his health.
“I couldn’t play sports, but music became my way of communicating with people,” he said.
Minor also learned a harsh reality about survival at the children’s home when some of the other children took him behind the home and tried to hang him. The house mother at the home saved him, but he carried the rope’s mark around his neck for weeks to come.
His music career began with a group named the New Expressions, a group of folk singers. He’s worked with a variety of bands and has even had some songs land on the charts.
When the HIV virus emerged in 1978, Minor began refusing to take his medication for fear of getting the virus since the main way it was being spread was through blood transfusions.
In 1983, he went to the University of Tennessee hospital for oral surgery and was given 200,000 units of Factor 8 for his hemophilia.
On Sept. 15, 1985, he was diagnosed with HIV and told that nearly all of those 200,000 units of Factor 8 had been contaminated with the virus.
Minor had just gotten married to his wife, Judy, on Aug. 1, 1985.
“First thing that came to mind was that I was responsible for maybe killing my wife,” he said.
Minor said that he and his wife spent many bitter days crying, but in the end, they learned that attitude is what can lead to survival.
“I fought to go from a person with a disease to a person living with a disorder,” he said.
Minor is the last living person with hemophilia and HIV in Johnson City. He said he has personally buried 266 people in this region.
He also spoke of having a personal investment in ETSU, saying that one of its students may be the person who is able to find a cure for AIDS.
Because he was never able to obtain a four-year degree due to his health, Minor urged students to get all the knowledge they possibly could and turn that knowledge into wisdom.
“Go out into this world and make a difference,” he said.
Free HIV testing was done in Meeting Room 4A at the Culp Center on Wednesday, and there were about 17 or 18 students who had the test done.
Minor said that there are about 14,000 people in Tennessee that may be affected with the virus and do not know it.
He made a guess of an estimated 1,500 HIV cases in Washington County alone.
He urged students not to abuse alcohol and drugs on the grounds that 49 percent of all new AIDS cases are because of those two factors.
“We are passionately trying to get this message out,” he said.
Minor’s wife, Judy, is tested every six months for the HIV virus and has remained HIV negative throughout the course of their marriage.
Minor has been diagnosed with eight different illnesses including Hepatitis C, HIV, diabetes and several more. Some of these are due to side effects from his medications.
“I would not wish this disease on my worst enemy,” Minor said.

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