“Poverty fuels passion to help kids - Cincinnati.com” plus 2 more |
- Poverty fuels passion to help kids - Cincinnati.com
- Kids get into the running as 'fun runs' pick up speed - USA Today
- Runner crosses country to keep kids away from drugs, gangs - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
| Poverty fuels passion to help kids - Cincinnati.com Posted: 08 Nov 2010 02:23 AM PST LIBERTY TWP. - Starting from a one-room school in the segregated South of the 1950s, Lakota school board member Ray Murray has traveled a life arc few have known. It was in hardscrabble times in rural Tennessee that Murray learned as a poor African-American youngster just how much of a lifeline schooling could be for him, or anyone else born into deprivation. "That was the Pulaski Colored School in Giles County, Tenn., and that's me at 5 years old in the first row," said the now 58-year-old business executive as he looked at an old photo. Murray is also the first black person in Lakota's 53-year history to serve on the school board that governs Ohio's seventh-largest school system. • More Liberty Township news. "It was a one-room schoolhouse with eight grades, 50 students and one teacher and two outdoor toilets. We were poor and some days wearing shoes to school was optional," Murray recalled. "It was brutal at times. School buses full of white kids would drive past us. Their buildings were modern and nice," he said. "Looking back on those days I remember realizing we were poor but I also believed in God and that he has purpose for all that I was going through," said Murray, who works as the general manager and project director for the Hampton Inn in Clifton. His father was a bootlegger and his mother worked as a seamstress. The family worked a small farm and later moved north. Before working his way through college, where he earned a bachelor's degree in economics, Murray was a police officer for 12 years in Illinois. Now a divorced father of two teenage girls, he credits his faith, hard work and "the discipline you learn when you grow up on a farm" for helping him rise above his meager start. In hindsight, he says, those days put a flame to his passion for making sure all children have the opportunity denied him. "I may not be a millionaire but I can help children get the opportunity they deserve. I bring that passion to the school board," he said. Years before Murray's successful, first-time run for political office in 2009, he was a constant attendee of Lakota school board meetings and a long-time volunteer and parent activist. Having moved to Butler County's Liberty Township in 1987, Murray has seen the once rural, largely white Lakota schools grow and diversify to the point where it now has more than 10 percent black enrollment among its 18,500 students. Lakota Superintendent Mike Taylor has spent his entire career in the district - more than three decades - and has seen many school board members, but few like Murray. "He is always putting the needs of the students first, which has pushed him to rise above the politics that comes with being a school board member. Ray has the patience to disagree with other positions respectfully and the professionalism to support collective decisions. Lakota is lucky to have a businessman like Ray," Taylor said. Fellow school board member Lynda O'Connor agreed, saying, "Ray is very people-centered with a focus on how decisions will affect students and staff balanced with his business experience. "He has been influenced by the times in which he was raised, through the civil rights movement in the deep South, from segregation to inclusion and a greater awareness of equality. Ray is a passionate advocate, willing to fight for what he believes in." Constance Cooper, department head of the hospitality management program in the University of Cincinnati's College of Business, has worked with Murray for years on the department's advisory board. Murray helped to revise the program's curriculum and often mentors young students interested in the hotel industry. "He is an outstanding person. He is very passionate about young people and very sincere about helping them to reach their career goals," Cooper said. At home, Murray's two teenage daughters sometimes do a double take when they look at their father's old school photo and then to the man who leads their household. "It makes you appreciate what you have," said 15-year-old Raychel Murray. "I'm pretty proud of him." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php | ||||||||||||||
| Kids get into the running as 'fun runs' pick up speed - USA Today Posted: 07 Nov 2010 05:05 PM PST |
By Mary Brophy Marcus, USA TODAY Rheinhardt Harrison, 6, was born to run. He ran his first race when he was a preschooler. Now the first-grader is a regular on the weekend road-race circuit in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, crossing the finish line alongside adults five times his age. He's active in youth track and cross-country events, too. "He's looked up to in school. He's known as 'the runner.' Kids in fifth grade want to race him," says his dad, fellow runner Dennis Harrison. Rheinhardt is among an increasing number of children pounding the pavement for fun. "Kids' runs are taking off," says Bart Yasso, a writer and running expert at Runner's World magazine, who attends races almost every weekend. Yasso says that in recent years many race organizers have added 1-mile "fun runs" to their agendas in an effort to accommodate adult runners who drag their little ones along to events. More proof of the trend: Until recently, the youngest award category at many races was "18 and under," but now you see that group broken down further by age, says Kathy Dalby, event director for Pacers Running Stores in the D.C. area. The Marine Corps Marathon 1-mile fun run, which took place a week ago in Washington, drew 3,000 children this year, many of whom are the kids of marathoners, says Tami Faram, public relations coordinator for the event. "We've grown from a little over 670 our first year 11 years ago," says Faram, who holds the fun run in the Pentagon's parking lot the day before the marathon. "When they crossed that finish, they got a medal put around their neck by a U.S. Marine." And while medals, T-shirts and goody bags are a big draw from a child's perspective, organizers say the rewards run deeper. "Running is the vehicle of showing them they can achieve," Yasso says. Some organizations have other goals as well. "Our mission is to educate and prepare girls for a lifetime of self-respect and healthy living. So while running is part of the program, it's just a piece of it," says Elizabeth Kunz, president of Girls on the Run International, a non-profit that provides schools and communities with the blueprints for a 12-week program that culminates in a 5K race. The group, founded in 1996 in Charlotte with 13 girls, now boasts more than 70,000 participants ages 8 to 12 from 3,700 locations. Training is combined with talks on self-esteem and social challenges such as bullying and gossip. "It's very inclusive," says Dalby, who helps coordinate three big D.C.-area Girls on the Run events, too, all coming up this month and next. "Girls can walk or run depending on their fitness level. We just want them to go out there and have at it." Best part about a kids' runs? Standing at the finish line. "Running is just so natural for a kid — 99% of them finish with a smile on their face," Yasso says. "Put that same camera on an adult race, and they look like they're going to die." Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php | |||||||||||||
| Runner crosses country to keep kids away from drugs, gangs - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Posted: 07 Nov 2010 09:01 PM PST John Radich has battled 100-degree heat, dehydration and truckers in a quest to run across America. "It's been an adventurous run," Radich, 56, of Monrovia, Calif., said Sunday as he stopped in the South Side. Averaging 35 to 40 miles a day, he has logged nearly 3,000 miles since leaving the Santa Monica pier in California on the Fourth of July. He said he hopes to reach Atlantic City, N.J., by Thanksgiving after running about 3,700 miles. Radich is making The Trans USA Run for The Way to Happiness Foundation, a nonprofit group established by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology. Radich said his ultra marathon has raised about $100,000 for the foundation. "We get kids off drugs and away from gangs," he said. Radich's route traces Route 66 to Chicago and Route 30 to New Jersey. He is either supported by a crew of runners or a car or pushes a three-wheeled cart laden with water, food, a sleeping bag and tennis shoes. He lives on energy drinks, cranberry juice, nuts, fruits, and peanut butter and bagels. At 6-foot-2, he weighs 155 pounds, having lost 15 pounds so far. "The most challenging obstacle was running through my own state of California through the Mojave Desert," he said. "It never dipped below 115 (degrees), and the hottest it got was 122." Radich said he was so dehydrated once in Texas that he urinated blood. After drinking more liquids and taking a lot of salt and potassium, he was able to continue after one or two days. He recalled jumping off the road in the rain a few times along a narrow section of Route 66 in Oklahoma. "I'm not going to argue with a 10,000-pound truck," he said. The most scenic stretches of his trip are Flagstaff, a Navajo Indian reservation and Ohio. Yes, Ohio. "I just fell in love with those red barns in Ohio," he said. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php | ||||||||||||||
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