Posted by Tamara Lombard on Tuesday, March 13, 2012
I'm so excited about this! My dad worked all his life for other
people one way or another and now he is being recognized for the work he's done
for the City of Kent.
He may not have done things in what many would say the best way,
but he did make things happen. It was his nature. He was a fighter, anyone who
knew him whether they liked him or not, agreed with him or not... they had to
admit he was a fighter.
In his move from Seattle to Kent he found his purpose. I don't
think he had planned on his retirement years to be filled with more work. It
was the plan for he and his wife to travel, see the country, smell some roses.
Not for him. He had things to do besides sitting around waiting for life to
pass him by. Not to say that traveling and so forth isn't a good thing, but for
a man with so much passion and life still brewing up inside, there had to be
something else.
Then came the biggest piece of evidence... the Jail.
Since the black community from Seattle was moving to the south-end, with
nothing for the kids to do in the area, it looked as if that was the place they
had made just for them and where they were headed. He was very angry
and afraid to see history repeating itself from days of his young
adulthood. Something had to be done. Somebody had to make some changes.
Somebody had to create an alternative to the challenges that were beginning to
spill out through the quiet streets of Kent. Somebody had to stand up for the
youth, the families in need of support and direction and answers. Somebody
needs to... so he did.
That is why we will honor
him with his own day of recognition for the endless work, paths he carved and walls
he knocked down to get the conversations started, “what can we do to help these
kids and their families?’
He didn’t do it alone,
no. He brought people with him who shared the same concerns. Some good, some
not, but he got the job done.