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Josh Sellars poses with some members of the "village" that helped him achieve his goal of earning a college degree. Standing (from left to right) are: Dale and Shannon Hughes; Terry and Deborah Paschal, Tonia Melton's parents; Sellars; and Tonia and Tommy Melton. Kneeling are Savannah Wilson (left), Tonia Melton's daughter; and Cherokee Rose, Shannon Hughes' daughter. They all attended Sellars' graduation and helped him celebrate afterward.
Keith Wells and Nancy Fleming Wells pose with Josh Sellars at his college graduation earlier this month. Nancy Wells, in particular, helped Sellars get enrolled at UNCG.
BURLINGTON — The odds were stacked heavily against Josh Sellars. With a journey as bumpy as his, how could he even have been expected to attend college, much less graduate?
But this isn’t just the story of a young man who earned an odds-defying college degree earlier this month — it’s also the story of a small village of individuals who helped him get there.
If his name sounds familiar to you, it should. Nearly 16 years ago, Sellars’ adoptive mother — 47-year-old Madelyn Carol Williams Sellars — was gunned down on Dixie Street by her estranged husband, 46-year-old John Daniel Sellars. According to police, the husband — who was also Josh’s adoptive father — shot his wife in the back and head as she was running away from him.
The shooter turned himself in to Burlington police that same morning — Jan. 3, 2007 — and later that year was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, where he remains to this day.
Josh received a lifetime sentence, too. Only 9 at the time, he’d just lost both of his adoptive parents — the two people who’d brought some semblance of stability to his life since adopting him and his brother, Jayson, as youngsters. So now what path would they take?
Unfortunately, Jayson — without the same support system as his younger brother — made mistakes and is still trying to find his way. Josh, however, followed a different path — an unexpected path that led him to college, and on Dec. 9, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a degree in geography.
He also continues to chase his ultimate dream — getting his pilot’s license, and possibly even joining the Air Force, where he’d like to fly the sleek F-22 Raptor fighter aircraft.
“Just getting this far is out of this world, because back then, I never would’ve thought anything like this could have happened,” said Josh, now 24. “And I know I couldn’t have done this without the help of some very special people.”
Josh Sellars poses with some members of the "village" that helped him achieve his goal of earning a college degree. Standing (from left to right) are: Dale and Shannon Hughes; Terry and Deborah Paschal, Tonia Melton's parents; Sellars; and Tonia and Tommy Melton. Kneeling are Savannah Wilson (left), Tonia Melton's daughter; and Cherokee Rose, Shannon Hughes' daughter. They all attended Sellars' graduation and helped him celebrate afterward.
Times-News
Submitted photo, Times-News
At first, it was Mona Williams — the biological daughter of the murder victim — who returned to Burlington from Baltimore, where she was pursuing a career in the hospitality industry, to take care of Jayson and Josh, said Nancy Fleming Wells, a Burlington woman who befriended Josh when he was in high school.
“Her mother gets murdered, and she comes back to raise those two boys that her mother had adopted,” Wells said. “Mona gave up her life to come back and provide a home for those boys so they wouldn’t have to go into foster care.”
During his junior year at Western Alamance High School, after living with Mona for several years, Josh moved in with one of his best friends, Hunter Hughes, and his dad, Dale Hughes.
“For me, it was like a fresh start,” Josh said. “I didn’t have to be constantly reminded of what had happened. It was kind of a new life for me.”
It was also during high school that Wells came into Josh’s life. Her daughter and Josh were in the school’s ROTC unit together, and Wells often drove him home when they stayed for after-school activities. She got to know him and invested her time in him when she learned of his rocky upbringing.
In June 2017, around the time he was graduating from Western Alamance, Josh began thinking seriously about his future. He’d never really given college much consideration, but when he mentioned the possibility to Wells, she helped him see how college could benefit him — he would likely need a college degree in order to join the Air Force, for example — and then she helped him get accepted into UNCG.
“I never would’ve been able to go to college without her,” Josh said. “Never.”
Josh said he benefited from college not only academically but also in learning life lessons from being on his own.
Keith Wells and Nancy Fleming Wells pose with Josh Sellars at his college graduation earlier this month. Nancy Wells, in particular, helped Sellars get enrolled at UNCG.
Times-News
Submitted photo, Times-News
“It’s a time of finding out who you are and the things you like and the people you want to be around,” he explained. “And it’s definitely a place where you learn those life lessons. It’s like a pre-adulting ground, where you’ll have successes and consequences, and you’ll feel the full effects of it.”
Now with a college diploma in his hand, Josh plans to resume his efforts to get his private pilot’s license — a process that began in 2019, when he took lessons and even completed a solo flight — and he still hopes to join the Air Force.
In the meantime, Josh can’t help but reflect on the individuals who have helped him get this far. In addition to Wells and her husband, Keith, he’s had two other couples caring for him. One is Dale Hughes, with whom he’d moved in during high school, and his second wife, Shannon. The other is Dale’s ex-wife, Tonia, and her second husband, Tommy Melton, with whom Josh currently lives.
Josh considers them all his family.
“So this kid has put together a village of people who love him and take care of him,” Wells said. “He bounces around to all of us for Christmas and Thanksgiving and Mother’s Day.”
And they were all there to see him fulfill his dream of graduating from college.
That unconditional support is not lost on Josh, who understands how fortunate he is to be so loved.
“I’m blown away by the fact that people who are not even related to you — people of different colors and different beliefs — can take you in and help raise you and build you up,” he said. “It’s nothing short of a miracle.”
