Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 19, 1992 TAG: 9201160239
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
EDUCATORS PROVIDE INSPIRATION FOR YOUTH
When Peter Lewis was growing up in Washington, he had to look no farther than his own father and mother for his primary role models. Others were nearby.In those days, "people who were successful didn't live apart from others in the community," Lewis, 48, says.
One Thanksgiving when Lewis was a child, he and his family were driving from Philadelphia to Washington to visit relatives. They stopped at a restaurant in Delaware but were refused service because of their race.
Lewis remembers his father shepherding the family outside, then turning to the restaurant's employees and patrons and telling them how shameful their behavior was.
"My father was a very proud man who carried himself with a great degree of respect," says Lewis, the principal of the alternative education program in the Roanoke City Schools. "He was an attorney with an MBA degree from New York University."
After completing his education, the elder Lewis went to a Wall Street firm and asked for a job. He was offered a position running an elevator. He asked about opportunities for advancement.
None, he was told.
"Every black family can tell you stories like that," Lewis says.
In Roanoke, black men of a certain age share several role models whose names come up repeatedly - educators like Richard Chubb, Irving Cannaday, Sherley Stuart, the William Fleming High School football coach, and others. They are inspirations to many young people even now.
You might say they are heroes - but a different kind of hero from a sports star like Magic Johnson or Barry Sanders.
"A hero is someone I look up to but probably don't ever get to touch," says Chet Hart, executive director of Big Brothers-Big Sisters of Roanoke Valley. "A role model touches me."
A role model, says former major baseball star Al Holland, is "any high school or middle school coach, a deacon in somebody's church, a member of the choir. It's anybody that stands up for the right. That's a role model - a guy who does what he preaches."
"My father was an important role model. He really taught me the importance of responsibility and hard work," says Courtland Lee, director of counselor education at the University of Virginia. His father worked two full-time jobs - as a postal clerk and as a shipping clerk in a Philadelphia factory. William Hackley, assistant superintendent for administration with the Roanoke City Schools, says his father carried the mail for 44 years to support his wife and 10 children - all 10 of whom graduated from college.
Hackley's mother was "the safety net - she was always home."
"My parents were my number-one role models," says George Miller, 11th-grade principal, wrestling coach and assistant football coach at William Fleming High School. "They gave me love, understanding and, most of all, the discipline I deserved."
Mike Franklin, an outreach supervisor at the Roanoke Juvenile Detention Home at Coyner Springs, went to the University of Cincinnati on a full basketball scholarship and played pro ball in Europe and South America. He credits his mother and his high school coach, Richard Kepley, for taking time to encourage and work with him.
"My father died when I was 12," says Franklin, 39. "My mother raised six kids, and five of us went to college."
What these stories share is role models who seemed, on the surface, to be ordinary people.
"Sports stars are getting a lot of unnecessary adulation when it's regular people who make a difference," Peter Lewis says.
When he talks to young people, he uses a sports metaphor - it's something they can easily understand. He tells them each of us is a runner in a relay race. Our job is to carry the baton as far as we can, and pass it to someone from the next generation.
"It pains me to see kids who are gifted throw their lives away," he says. "It's our job now to get kids ready and pass on responsibility to them."