Whitewater High School welcomed renowned motivational speaker Travis Howze Sept. 20 for a stop on his 2025 “Post Traumatic Purpose” tour. The near three-hour course is designed to bring awareness to mental health concerns to first responders, military personnel, veterans and more, encouraging them to be better communicators about their trauma.

Howze, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, former police officer and retired firefighter, experienced his own mental health struggles throughout his career, and now uses his platform to ensure listeners do not make the same mistakes he did.

“I didn’t know how to ask for help,” Howze said. “I held it in and did what tough guys do. It destroyed everything, including my career. We don’t learn in this business by not being open with one another. That’s how we fail each other.”

Howze has spent the last 15 years as a public speaker, beginning as a stand-up comedian before transitioning into speaking about mental health. He has built a substantial following on social media, accumulating nearly 600,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok combined.

Whitewater Fire Chief Kelly Freeman expressed his gratitude for Howze, along with City Manager John Weidl and the late Greg Kent, a Whitewater High School graduate who helped fund paramedic school for aspiring students.

“As [Howze] puts it himself, ‘I’m just a person like you,” Freeman said.

Howze explained how he was always destined to display his emotions through hard times. Growing up, he was taught to be a man, which in his father’s eyes was to show no sadness. This trend followed him to the first responder field, one example being when his fire chief told him to “suck it up” after he accidentally killed someone by mixing two medications that should not have been mixed.

“He told me, ‘I need you to wipe that off your face, that emotion, and get back over there,” Howze said. “Don’t let the crew see it. Because if they see it, they’re going to chew me apart. That’s what I did as a young kid.”

Instead of improving his mental state, the first responder field deteriorated it and put him in more danger. But he knows he is not alone. During the presentation, he pointed out that there are more suicides among first responders than deaths in the line of duty.

“We are more of a danger to ourselves than the big bad boogeymen on the dirty streets out there,” Howze said.

After a brief course break, Howze shifted to talk about the clinical side of trauma, identifying symptoms and coping mechanisms. He still used anecdotes about his time as a first responder during this segment, but looked to help those in attendance potentially find PTSD in themselves and in others.

“Lots of times we don’t even know what a mental health crisis looks like in our own people,” Howze said. “Many of us are sitting next to them and they’re in it right now.”

Some symptoms include testing fate, constantly calling out sick, coming into work drunk, among others. Howze told several humiliating stories that tie to symptoms of trauma, adding that lives can change in an instant no matter where you are.

As for coping mechanisms, they have drastically changed since he had a 90-minute conversation with his wife about what he was going through. It is easy to “trauma bond” with people in your profession, but allowing your spouse to know your limits opens up more coping opportunities.

“The people that can help you the most in your life struggles, it ain’t your fire chief, it ain’t your police chief, your battalion chief, your supervisors,” Howze said. “It’s your family.”

Despite the sensitivity of the topics at hand, Howze showed his stand-up comedian side, repeatedly cracking jokes with audience members. He opened the show by teasing Whitewater, pointing out a lack of places to eat. He even composed a new slogan for the city, saying “Welcome to Whitewater: Come Happy and Leave Starving.”

“I like to make this as fun as we can,” Howze said before the show. “There’s going to be some darkness… but we’ll have fun.”

After ending the presentation with resources and an audience picture, he took pictures and signed autographs with first responders in the high school lobby. From the high number of humorous moments to the standing ovation at the end, it was clear that his presentation was well-appreciated.

“There is hope,” Howze said. “It just takes work.”

If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline for immediate support, or text “HOME” to 741741 to connect with a Crisis Text Line counselor.