PAL Volunteer Larry "Ace" Parker of Claremore Named First Recipient of Boren Mentoring Award
December 28, 2008
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Larry “Ace” Parker, a longtime volunteer with the Volunteers for Youth PAL Mentoring Program in CLAREMORE, has been named recipient of the inaugural David L. Boren Mentoring Award, which recognizes an outstanding mentor in Oklahoma.
The award will be presented in conjunction with National Mentoring Month in January and is sponsored by the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence and its David and Molly Boren Mentoring Initiative. Parker will be honored on national Thank Your Mentor Day, Jan. 22, at a reception at 3 p.m. in the Blue Room of the State Capitol. The Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence will present Parker with a plaque and will donate $500 in his honor to benefit the Volunteers for Youth PAL Program in Claremore.
Parker, a retired master mechanic, volunteered for the PAL Program six years ago after surviving stage-three esophageal cancer and being given “a second chance at life.” He was matched with Dalton, a young boy who had just lost his own father to cancer. Like Dalton’s father, Parker was a biker. Dalton’s mother, Kari Harris, described it as a match made in heaven.
“The biker connection was an instant bond for them,” Harris said. “My son had always been around motorcycles and around my husband’s friends. Some kids might have been intimidated by bikers, but for Dalton it was just like going home.”
Harris said Parker has had a tremendous impact on Dalton, from helping with school work and exposing him to new experiences to offering emotional support and boosting his self-esteem. “Larry’s really big on teaching kids about respect and accountability,” she said. “Dalton has come a long way in the last couple of years. Kids often say ‘I didn’t do that’ or ‘It’s not my fault,’ but Dalton does that less and less now. Larry’s also filled in on the manly things that boys need to know that moms just can’t teach them. They say it ‘takes a village to raise a child,’ and it really is true.”
For the past six years, Parker has met weekly at school with Dalton and recently began mentoring a second student, Daniel. Parker said he spends about half of his time with his mentees just talking about school and what’s happening in their lives. They spend the rest of the session playing games, such as chess or checkers. When Dalton was younger, Parker introduced games like dominos, UNO and blackjack to help him improve his math skills. Sometimes Parker gets the boys to open up by discussing the school’s “Word of the Week,” which often deals with character traits like honesty, responsibility or integrity. A Vietnam veteran, Parker has also discussed the privileges of voting and serving the country through the military.
Parker begins and ends each of his mentoring sessions with a firm handshake, a way of teaching the boys how to meet and greet others with respect and pride. “I talk to the boys about being an original – be proud of who you are, hold your head up, walk tall.”
Cindy Vanaman, director of the Volunteers for Youth PAL Program, said Dalton, 13, has grown into a confident and well-adjusted young man under Parker’s guidance. “His grades have improved tremendously, and he participates in football at school,” she said. “Dalton now reads at a college grade level and has made huge strides socially. Larry has taught Dalton to have pride in his achievements at school and otherwise.”
Parker has become a true ambassador for the PAL Program, speaking to civic groups about mentoring and even helping organize a “Poker Run” to raise funds for the program. Most recently, he and Dalton “starred” in a five-minute recruitment video for the PAL program. When he’s not volunteering for PAL, Parker stays busy as a leader of BACA -- Bikers Against Child Abuse, a group that provides protection and advocacy for abused children.
Sporting long gray hair, tattoos and leather motorcycle attire, Parker says people who don’t know him may wonder, “What’s this long-haired, old guy doing being a mentor?” “But once we visit with each other, then they’ll learn that I may be one of those hard-nosed type individuals, but when it comes to helping the kids, there’s just a big, old soft heart in there.”
The Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence, a nonprofit organization founded in 1985 by then-U.S. Sen. Boren, recognizes and encourages academic excellence in Oklahoma’s public schools. In 2005, the foundation launched the Boren Mentoring Initiative to promote the growth and development of school-based mentoring statewide. The initiative grew out of Boren’s own commitment to mentoring and the proven impact that mentoring can have on a student’s success in and out of the classroom.
The Foundation for Excellence is led by a statewide board of trustees composed of leaders in business, government and education. Claremore-area trustees include Carole Burrage, Frank C. Robson and Carolyn A. Taylor.
For more information on the Boren Mentoring Initiative or National Mentoring Month activities, visit www.okmentors.org or call Jennifer Geren, program director, at (405) 410-1523.