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Triplets win Daniels Fund scholarships

The triplets are planning on going to college separately to pursue their different interests. Mohammed wants to go into medicine. Yassen likes politics. Imad wants to be a businessman.
Credit: Nelson Garcia
Imad Rashed, Mohammed Rashed, Yassen Rashed, and their mother Mariam Salem smile about all three triplets winning a 4-year scholarship from the Daniels Fund.

DENVER - Mohammed Rashed, born first in a set of triplets, makes sure his brothers Yassen Rashed and Imad Rashed know who is the oldest.

"Anything birth order goes first, so I go first in anything you know," Mohammed said.

Imad, the youngest by a minute, doesn't believe that's fair.

"Technically, it was a C-section, so it really doesn't count," Imad said. "That minute has really affected my lives in so many ways."

The triplets are students at the Denver Center for International Studies. But, in 2012, they received an international lesson they never expected while visiting their mother's family in Libya.

"We (were) stuck in Libya for 13 months and it was a civil war over there," said Mariam Salem, their mother.

Salem said their passports were stolen and they were trapped living away from their home in Colorado.

"Schools were different," Yassen said. "They had corporal punishment."

Imad says he feared going to school every day in Libya.

"Before the day even began, I'd be so scared that I'd say the wrong answer or anything would cause me to be hit," Imad said.

Salem said they escaped Libya by driving through a war zone into Tunisia which allowed them passage back to the United States to start their lives over.

"I'm divorced and I raised my boys since they were 12 years old," Salem said.

The triplets said their experience in Libya instilled a renewed vigor for education. They excelled in school but realized that going to college posed a steep financial obstacle.

"I know my mother can't pay for one of us to go to college, let alone all three of us," Yassen said.

Salem said she wondered all this year how to pay for schooling.

"When I see them working very hard for their homework and preparing for tests, I was so, so worried that maybe they're not going to make it because I cannot afford to pay for three boys at the same time," Salem said.

But, they found the Daniels Fund, named after cable television pioneer Bill Daniels. A Daniels Scholarship will pay college costs for 4 years after a student has used all financial aid and scholarship opportunities available.

"It's always been a competition between my brothers and I," Mohammed said.

They began to wonder what if one of them wins or none of them.

"I was thinking if one of them got accepted. how it's going to be," Salem said.

Imad said it would've been the ultimate thing in their sibling rivalry.

"If one of us got it and two of us didn't, that would be really sad, but the one would always brag about it," Imad said.

They checked the mail multiple times every day for any word about the Daniels Fund until the day last week when they finally got their answer.

"He came back running and screaming on the street and he said, 'Mama, we got it, we got it'," Salem said.

All three received 4-year scholarships from the Daniels Fund competing against 2,250 other applicants. In Colorado, 146 students received the Daniels Scholarship. Students in Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico won, as well.

The triplets are planning on going to college separately to pursue their different interests. Mohammed wants to go into medicine. Yassen likes politics. Imad wants to be a businessman.

"I am so proud of them," Salem said. "They are very good kids, very well behaved."

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