Laurel Highlands High School in Uniontown, Pa., honored Tucson trauma surgeon Dr. Peter Rhee with a lifetime achievement award on Saturday.
Rhee, 50, graduated from the high school in 1979. He is now the chief trauma surgeon at The University of Arizona Medical Center and attracted international attention last year when he treated former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and others injured in the Jan. 8, 2011 Tucson shooting.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that Rhee was a wrestler while he attended high school and that he still calls Uniontown home.
"When you come back to a little town like Uniontown and I see people since graduation still here and all my friends from high school own this store, that building and they're community leaders...I think that's what the American dream is," Rhee told Post-Gazette reporter Jonathan D. Silver.
People are also reading…
"I'm extremely proud I had a chance to live that fortunate life in this country."
