College resident assistant fulfills student's request to be read a bedtime story on his birthday

Quamir Boddie asked the student what he needed to feel at home.

ByABC News
March 5, 2017, 3:35 PM

— -- One University of Tennessee resident assistant went above and beyond to make a freshman student feel at home in his new dorm.

Last August Quamir Boddie asked incoming students living in the Hess Hall dorm to fill out a form that included basic contact information like their telephone numbers. However, one question on the form was: "Is there anything I can do to make your year better?"

Advertising student Andrew Kochamba had one request, he told ABC News. "I just wrote I would love it if you read me a bedtime story on my birthday," he said.

Leading up to his birthday, Kochamba, 19, said he made sure Boddie, whom students call "Q," remembered his unique request.

"I had been nagging him about it," Kochamba recalled, "[saying], 'Q, where's that bedtime story? You have a book ready?'"

PHOTO: After University of Tennessee resident assistant Quamir Boddie asked his students what they needed to feel at home, he fulfilled Andrew Kochamba's request of reading him a bedtime story.
After University of Tennessee resident assistant Quamir Boddie asked his students what they needed to feel at home, he fulfilled Andrew Kochamba's request of reading him a bedtime story.

"On my birthday, he rolls up in his pajamas with a book that he brought from his house called 'Leo the Late Bloomer,'" Kochamba said, laughing. "It was like 9 o'clock and I had not gone to bed yet. So I crawled in my bed and my roommate took those pictures."

Kochamba posted the photos of Boddie reading to him while he lay in bed on Twitter. They quickly went viral with more than 14,000 people retweeting them and more than 63,000 people liking them.

Kochamba said he wasn't surprised that Boddie was such a great sport.

"He's super nice and really funny," the student added. "He's really attentive as an RA. He comes off as just a really good friend; someone you could talk to. He's like a cool boss."