From “Wimp wear” to college, 19-year-old Wendell Mosby has found the key to success.

Mosby was living in Chicago Heights, Ill., where he saw the rough lives people in his neighborhood were living.

He said when he was young, he decided he wanted to make a difference.

Mosby said when he was young, his parents couldn’t afford the brand name clothes his friends had.

He said he used to go to a local store and have them embroider his nickname “wimp” into his clothes.

The idea of his own clothing line began to materialize and Mosby created “Wimp wear” in 1992.

Mosby said while he was deciding what to do with his future after high school, his girlfriend had a miscarriage when she was five months pregnant the day before his graduation.

“That made me decide that I had nothing to lose, and I decided to jump right into my future,” Mosby said. “That is still my motivation now; it’s just a dog-eat-dog world.”

In the fall of 1995, Mosby said he took his graduation money and purchased T-shirts at wholesale and decided to introduce “Wimp wear” to the public.

At this point Mosby said he knew he wanted to break into the fashion industry.

Mosby’s home economics teacher from high school had a daughter in textiles and clothing at ISU.

Mosby said she encouraged him to apply because she felt he had talent.

“My mom taught me to wash, cook, clean and sew by the time I was 10 so I wouldn’t have to depend on anyone to take care of me,” Mosby said.

Mosby said he didn’t think he would be accepted to a division one school because of his low ACT score.

When ISU accepted him, he said he didn’t know how he would pay for it — but he knew he had to go.

Mosby, now a sophomore in clothing and textiles, said he worked two jobs his freshman year to pay for school.

He also took out an unsubsidized loan, an emergency Martin Luther King Loan and a Perkins loan.

“When I came to Iowa State, I didn’t know anybody except the people I met over the summer in the George Washington Carver program,” Mosby said.

Mosby said he was the only minority person on his floor, and he moved in with a farmer from Monroe.

“I’d never been close friends with a white man until coming here; now some of my best friends are white and from small towns,” Mosby said.

Mosby said the key to getting along was simply sitting down and talking to one another right away to dispel any bad feelings or misunderstandings.

He said he learned a great deal from his roommate, and his roommate learned many things from him. Mosby added that he thinks it is important to try to understand one another and learn about places and people that are unfamiliar.

“I even went home for Thanksgiving to Monroe with my roommate; it was really cool, and I will go back there again,” Mosby said.

Mosby has since moved out of his old room and is the only African American resident advisor in RCA.

However, he and his former roommate are still close and talk to one another often.

“I’m from a town of about 2,300 people, and Wendell and I were about as far off as you can get in background,” said Jonathan Wilson, Mosby’s former roommate..

Wilson, a freshman in sociology, said he learned his work ethic and improved study habits from Mosby.

Currently, Mosby said he has around 30 designs for “Wimp wear” and he is using his college time to make connections for his future.

“I’m just building the foundations now — someday “Wimp wear” will be a household name,” Mosby said.

With a distinct lack of money due to his student status, Mosby said he is limited to producing his merchandise in the spring and winter for promoting his clothes.

“I’ve been donating shirts to various organizations to get my name out. I’ve given away about 50 shirts since I started,” he said.

Mosby has high hopes for the future of “Wimp wear.”

He hopes to have his line of clothing licensed, start a foundation for at-risk pregnant women and eventually become mayor of his home town of Chicago Heights.

“It’s never too early to start working toward your goals; the world can be as big as you want but as small as your neighborhood,” he said.