Marysville student accepted at Harvard Law

He saw the Massachusetts area code on his cell phone when it rang while he was working at his desk in Sacramento.

"I've been waiting for bad news," said Ben Cassady, 22.

But what he heard Monday from Harvard Law School was hardly that.

An assistant dean told Cassady, home-schooled in Marysville by his parents until he attended Yuba College as a 17-year-old, that he had been accepted at Harvard.

Such success is not what Cassady expected when he began in 2005 at Yuba College while working full-time at the Burger King on Stabler Lane in Yuba City.

"It was a very different experience for me to be sitting around people who were not siblings — and to be instructed by someone who was not my parent," Cassady said of attending the community college.

School for Cassady had always started with his brothers and sister in the family living room in Marysville when his mother, Debora, who has a degree from Ohio University, would hand out assignments after the family had read from the Bible and saluted the American flag.

His father, Dr. Joe Cassady, the health officer for Yuba County, would follow at day's end with instruction in science and history.

Debora Cassady was a public school teacher until the couple's first child was born and welcomed her return to education by home-schooling their children, Ben, Alex, 24, a Navy officer; Kaniel, 20; Grant, 18; Morgan, 16; and Jerilyn, 14.

"Not only did I get to stay at home with my kids," she said. "I also regained my teaching job."

Ben said the Cassady home has a love for literature and raises readers rather than watchers.

"We didn't have a television growing up," he said. "We still don't."

His home schooling was the best education he could have received, Ben said. Some who hear of the home schooling regularly register surprise.

"The standard response is raised eyebrows," said Cassady, who graduated from California State University, Chico in 2009.

He works in the state Capitol in a yearlong fellowship program and has been accepted for admission by Harvard Law as well as the laws schools of the University of California, Berkeley, UCLA, New York University and others.

The Rev. John Thomas of Truth Tabernacle, the Pentecostal Church in Olivehurst that the Cassady family attends, said Ben is extraordinarily intelligent and matches that with a rarer quality.

"A lot of people have talent," Thomas said. "They don't discipline that talent."

"Ben worked really hard," he added.

Cassady didn't have to, said Karl Nessi, 26, who attended Chico State with Cassady.

"He probably could have worked half as hard as he did and still gain acceptance into Harvard Law," said Nessi of Paradise.

Cassady said he has until May to decide whether he will enroll in Harvard and will have to consider the financial costs.

His love for the law is matched by a passion for history that he said he inherited from his father and that was furthered by Yuba College Professor Travis Smith.

Smith praised his former student's scholarship and curiosity.

"He's not an ideologue," Smith said.

Cassady helped start up the Yuba County Student Historical Association and won an award for his paper about pioneer John Sutter which came after many days of research in the California History Room at the Yuba County Library in Marysville.

"Once I got historical fever, I started to feel a little like a detective," he said.

Cassady read contemporary accounts about Sutter's mistreatment of Native Americans in the mid-19th century and concluded: "While Sutter may be emblematic of his times, he's definitely not excused by them."

Cassady added, he decided that as an 18-year-old — and said that 18-year-olds usually aren't right.

He's sure about his gratitude for his parents lessons in faith and learning. And he's happy to have grown up in Marysville.

Nothing is better than driving along Highways 70 or 99 and coming home to this "great small town" where, Cassady said, "people are so friendly."

Contact Appeal reporter Ryan McCarthy at 749-4707 or rmc carthy@appealdemocrat.com