Billionaire NBA owner Glen Taylor visited a rural Iowa class. A shy kid raised his hand — and it changed his life.

MANKATO, Minn. — Harley Ries was one of those local kids you never hear about. He didn’t excel. He didn’t get into trouble.

He didn’t have dreams. He didn’t have money. A lot of didn’ts.

What he did have were family issues that, for a time during his senior year in high school, often left him alone in the world.

“I was his teacher. I had him two periods a day during second semester,” said Donna Sennert, who taught business then at Sioux Central High School in Sioux Rapids. “He sat in the back of the room, very quiet. He was invisible. He completed his assignments and didn’t exist.

“Until Glen Taylor came.

“It was like someone put a quarter in Harley, and he came to life.”

Glen Taylor is a billionaire businessman from Minnesota, the owner of the NBA Minnesota Timberwolves, WNBA Lynx, the Star Tribune newspaper in Minneapolis and numerous other businesses. He also owns farmland in northwest Iowa near Sioux Rapids and an egg plant in nearby Spirit Lake, which is why he accepted the invitation to talk to Sennert’s class.

Taylor saw something in Harley Ries — a bit of himself — and decided to help him.

Four years later, Ries will walk across the stage Saturday as a college graduate of Minnesota State University at Mankato. Taylor and Sennert will sit just below to watch him grab the diploma he never dreamed of holding.

Ries, 21, will not throw his parents under the bus or be the victim, he said during an interview at a coffee shop in downtown Mankato. He loves them and says they will also attend graduation on Saturday. But this is what he will say about his childhood.

After his parents divorced when he was 7, “things got tough.” He shuffled between parents and decided to live with his dad in Sioux Rapids in eighth grade.

“I wanted to have a better connection with him than I previously had. Unfortunately, I happened to experience instability and unsureness,” he said. "I wasn't able to develop my self-esteem like some others did and I looked down on myself for that. It was hard to trust people and be accepting of their help."

Though he maintained a C grade average, held a part-time job at Taco John's and played sports, “I was just there,” he said. “I was just trying to get by and wasn’t thinking about college or graduation.”

In February of his senior year, his teacher told the class that Glen Taylor was going to speak to them and to bring five questions on a note card.

Sennert said she had read a profile of Taylor in the newspaper, a rags-to-riches story of a poor rural Minnesota farm kid whose high school girlfriend became pregnant as a junior; the couple soon married. Despite the challenges, Taylor found a way to work his way through college in Mankato at a local printing company that he would one day own. That company today is Taylor Corporation, and Taylor is its chairman.

Taylor’s net worth as of May 1 is $2.6 billion, according to Forbes.

After Taylor told his story to the class, there was a quiet in the room when he asked for questions. Few expected a raised hand from Ries, a shy kid who said he was “just trying to keep low and not draw attention to myself.”

“For some reason that day I raised my hand.”

He asked Taylor why he chose to go into business, about his daily life and whether the Timberwolves were a hobby. Afterward, he talked to him more in a small group.

A day later, as Sennert was writing a thank you to Taylor, the vision of shy Harley Ries coming out of his shell kept popping into her mind.

“I had no intention of asking Glen for anything. I really don’t know why I did this,” she said. “So I wrote to him about the kid in the red shirt who asked him questions, and told him he could use a little help going to college.”

To her surprise, Taylor wrote back. He wanted to meet Ries.

“I was in that situation at his age,” Taylor said in an interview. “I see a little of myself in him. When I was graduating from high school, I didn’t have any money. My folks didn’t have any money. But my teachers were supportive of me, encouraging me to get an education.”

Taylor offered to pay for Ries’ college education.

Sennert pulled Ries from class to tell him. “I thought I was in trouble,” he said. “But when she told me he was willing to bring me to Mankato, I was in shock. It was the biggest thing in my life at that point.”

Bigger things were to come. He had to meet with Taylor once a month throughout college, maintain his grades and stay out of trouble.

Taylor, 77, said it isn’t the first time he has helped students pay for college. It usually happens by chance, when he runs across a student that needs help and mentoring. A requirement is regular meetings “to work with Grandpa Glen.”

Their sessions, he said, cover not only school work but also budgets, dating, choices about alcohol and drug use, and even how you treat people.

“The little things are important,” Taylor said.

Ries was nervous at first. He thought he wasn’t good enough. He didn’t even have the grades to enter a four-year college. He spent a year at a nearby community college as preparation and the next year was accepted at MSU, a college of 15,000 students.

He had thought so little of what he would do he told Taylor he was interested in astronomy and graphic design, without considering how the two merge or where it might lead.

But Taylor didn’t look down on him, he said.

“When we first started meeting, he didn’t say much,” Taylor said. “Now he comes to meetings with an outline and a full agenda.”

It wasn’t always smooth sailing, Taylor said. He had to go through the challenges of the college transition like any other student. But slowly everyone saw his confidence build.

He joined a fraternity, worked part-time jobs and became a residence hall adviser. He was active in several service organizations, including Big Brothers/Big Sisters, where the once-shy kid gave a fluent speech on his goal to help others in his spot.

Ries said Taylor never told him to do anything, but he made suggestions. All the power, he told him, was in his hands.

Ries said he will graduate with a 3.5 grade point average. And his work as an intern at Taylor Corp. headquarters in Mankato the past year led to a sales job with the company in Minneapolis once he graduates.

“He brought me out of my shell,” Ries said.

Taylor said it isn’t the intention that students he helps will work for his companies, though some do. He just wants to see them grow.

“I’ve seen him change considerably. His shyness has turned to leadership. He is a very confident young man right now,” he said. “I’m proud of him. I know he will go out and do something. It’s been a good investment.”

Just as proud is his former teacher, who is now semi-retired and lives in Storm Lake. Donna Sennert and husband Randy keep a bedroom open for Ries to stay.

She has seen the confidence in how he carries himself and takes charge. She has marveled at how he finished a double major in both marketing and business management in just four years and can now talk easily with all people “and can sell anything to anybody.”

Teachers are always looking for what there is to learn, so Sennert offers this about Ries’ story: “Don’t be afraid to raise your hand and ask for anything. The worst anyone can say is no.”

Ries has his own advice: You are going to fail, so learn to grow from it; don’t blame the past but focus on now; capitalize on unexpected opportunities because they could lead to great things.

“I never thought I’d have the opportunity to walk across the graduation stage,” he said.

His goal isn’t to gather the wealth of his mentor, but he hopes to make enough someday to give back to others who were just like him, a kid without much hope.

“It could be the thing that changes their life,” he said. “That’s what Glen did for me.”