Thursday, October 21, 1999
Achievements of character
Like Brian Thompson, teen YMCA award winners give back happiness
BY JULIE IRWIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Woodward senior Brian Thompson blossomed with the help of a mentor.
(Yoni Pozner photo)
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Five years ago Brian Thompson was a shy, withdrawn teen with only a passing interest in academics. Today the Woodward High School senior is outgoing and involved, both at school and in church, an honor-roll student and recipient of a 1999 YMCA Character Award. He is also proof of what can happen when an adult becomes involved in a teen's life.
Those who know Brian say that everything changed when he came to know Chad Oler through Woodward's mentoring program. First assigned as Brian's mentor, Chad became a friend, role model and motivator for the Avondale teen as he navigated the often-difficult high-school years.
“After his father died (in 1992), Brian was sort of down and lonely,” says Brian's mother, Phyllis Thompson. “But when he got to know Chad, he blossomed real good. He came out of his shell.”
Brian, 18, is one of 40 teens selected for the Third Annual YMCA Character Awards, which honor local youths who demonstrate caring, honesty, respect and responsibility in their daily lives. The awards seek to prove that many teens are making the right choices and working to improve their homes, their schools and their communities.
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OTHER ACHIEVERS
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List of award recipients
• Jenna Laumer, 16, attends Walnut Hills High School. Her community service includes tutoring at Peaslee Neighborhood Center and work with SHARE food distribution, the Drop-In Center, the Civic Garden Center, a local nursing home, the Community Action Team and Bellarmine Youth Group. She is an honor-roll student and recently won the Honor Camper Cup at the YMCA's Camp Ernst in Burlington.
• Ndaya Isabelle Kalubi, 17, attends Seven Hills School. For the past three summers she has worked at Summerbridge Cincinnati, a program that teaches at-risk middle-school students to improve their skills and become more motivated. She also volunteers at an adult day-care center, working with elderly people who need help exercising to maintain muscle tone. She has already held five major leadership positions in sports teams and extracurricular clubs.
jw• Jon MacMurdo, 17, attends William Henry Harrison High School. He is active in his church, including a puppet ministry for children, the children's church, Vacation Bible School and volunteer work helping senior citizens and shut-ins around their homes. He has collected canned goods for the food pantry at the Cincinnati Baptist Association and sings carols at nursing homes during the Christmas season. Jon is active in “True Love Waits” and “See You at the Pole” programs, was chairman of the Big Brother/Big Sister program at his school and volunteers for the Police Explorers Program for the Harrison community.
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The teens, who come from all over the Tristate, will receive their awards tonightat the Hyatt Regency. This is the third year the YMCA has honored area youths for their character.
Brian's development has led him to take an active part in his school and church. In the last few years he has participated in the Teen Institute Drug-Free Program, the Hamilton County Youth Conference, the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative, and the H.O.P.E. for Kids child immunization program at his church.
He has served as secretary of Woodward High School's junior class and equipment manager for the football team. Earlier this year, he received a Martin Luther King Jr. Dreamkeeper Award from the Arts Consortium of Cincinnati. Recently, he took a job at a Blockbuster Video to pay for his college applications.
And he does everything with a cheerful attitude and a determination to improve things around him, those who know him say.
“Brian's definitely someone who is out serving people a lot, but the most striking thing about him when you talk to him is his character,” says Dale Unroe, who nominated Brian for the YMCA award after getting to know him through the Cincinnati Church of Christ's teen ministry. “You realize he's very humble, but he's also very probing. He's always looking for things to learn.”
Brian and Chad met in 1995, when Chad was assigned to Brian as a mentor through Woodward's ASPIRE mentoring program. Chad was working in research and development for Procter & Gamble. They got together once a week, trying just about anything: the theater, hockey games, the gym.
“It took a long time for him to open up, and I can understand that. He's a teen-ager, and we come from different places,” Chad, 28, says. “But when he opened up it was just wonderful.”
Chad took Brian along with him when he hung out with friends and taught him to cook and do laundry and how to study better. Brian — a voracious reader who loves Star Trek and American history — began frequenting the library by choice, and he now tutors younger children there.
Brian recognizes how much he has changed in the years he's known Chad.
“I'm not that shy anymore. I'm open and talkative,” Brian says. “I think of (Chad) as a good role model. We've been together for five years. I look up to him as a big brother.”
Teachers and administrators at Woodward also noticed Brian transforming himself from a withdrawn, lackluster student to an outgoing and interested student.
“When we first met Brian, he was very shy and didn't talk a lot,” says Jessie McAninch, who works with the mentoring program at Woodward. “But he and Chad hit it off from day one. Chad helped him open a bank account, took him to places like the ballet where he probably wouldn't have gone, and it's just one of those relationships that just took off.”
Chad arranged for Brian to accompany him to Chad's native Wisconsin, where he met Chad's family and played hockey with Chad's little brothers. The trips to Wisconsin are Brian's best memories with Chad.
“It's great up there,” Brian says. “Hockey is my favorite sport.”
Chad moved back to Wisconsin earlier this month to pursue a graduate degree in naturopathy. Although the two miss each other already, they have been talking on the phone almost daily and e-mailing. Brian will return to Wisconsin over the Christmas break this year.
Brian is busy preparing for college applications and like most teens, his dreams change from day to day. He hopes to go to the University of Toledo and is thinking about a future in computers or political science. He says he also wants to start a school for children in a developing country, maybe Tibet.
Chad won't be able to make it here for the YMCA awards, although he will be down for Brian's graduation in the spring. And they will keep talking and e-mailing on a regular basis.
“I'm very sad about missing some of this stuff because it's all coming together, but he calls me and tells me about it,” Chad says. “I'm most proud that he lets that beautiful person that he is come out. He brings happiness with him, and that's really rare for a teen-age boy to do.”
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