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United Methodist vocational teacher forges stronger students

12/5/2003 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn.

NOTE: Photographs and a television report are available with this story.

By Nancye Willis*

LINK: Click to open full size version of image
Jack Towns teaches at-risk teens how to weld scrap metal into works of art at Catoosa Crossroads Academy in Ft. Oglethorpe, Ga. A UMNS photo by Lyle Jackson. Photo number 03-504, Accompanies UMNS #583, 12/4/03


LINK: Click to open full size version of image
Students learn to weld scrap metal into works of art at Catoosa Crossroads Academy in Ft. Oglethorpe, Ga. A UMNS photo by Lyle Jackson. Photo number 03-505, Accompanies UMNS #583, 12/4/03




FORT OGLETHORPE, Ga. (UMNS)- Jack Towns, a member of Graysville (Ga.) United Methodist Church, uses fire and metal to mold the self-esteem of teenagers who might otherwise have little.

The sixth- through 12th-graders in his welding and blacksmithing classes at Catoosa Crossroads Academy have been told they cannot return to public school because they have been disruptive or have not attended regularly.

"They think they're worthless, but they're recyclable," Towns says of his students. That perception might also apply to the scrap metal the students use to craft whimsical sculptures-long-legged birds, basset hounds and some creatures not easy to identify. The students call their sculptures "yard critters."

Like the discarded bicycles, lawn mowers, and lawn and garden tools with which they work, most of Towns' students "have been given up on by society," he says. "They're cast over to the side of the road. Unless somebody stops and nurtures them back to health, they're probably not going to make it."

He sees his role as restoring hope to lives deemed hopeless. "They need somebody that believes in them -- that trusts them. And I think they need somebody that has a trust in Christ."

Katherine Arledge, 15, is one of Town's success stories. Despite a high IQ, she failed sixth grade at a public school in Ringgold.

"I was making Ds and Fs at my other school," Katherine says. "When I came here, I started making As and Bs.

"My attitude started changing toward school," she says. "When I came here, everybody had a positive attitude toward life. They tried to show me how to make (my life) positive by caring and working with me one on one."

Towns, who has taught third-, fourth- and fifth-grade Sunday school classes at the Graysville church for more than 25 years, says that experience led him into education. "Working in Sunday school let me know that that's what I wanted to do - to become a full-time teacher," he says.

After several years coordinating public-school vocational academic education, Towns joined the staff of Crossroads in 1994 at the school's inception. He says he had prayed at his church's altar: "'Here I am, Lord, send me.' This is where he sent me."

"I'm in tune with God's will and what he has in store for me as a United Methodist," he says of the decision to leave traditional education.

What God had in store held some surprises for Towns. "I couldn't weld when I first got here," he says. "I went to welding school for three years."

It was worth it, he says. Along with the yard art, the program is "creating artists. We're creating people that feel good about themselves."

They're also learning the value of their skills, selling their art through a local art association and gallery. "They can be entrepreneurs. They can take junk and make art and sell it and make money," Towns says. "And they can be proud of what they do."

The yard art sales raise about $2,500 a year for the Catoosa County Children's Fund. Some of the money also is used to buy supplies for the classes, and the students get to keep a portion.

Changing minds, changing grades, changing attitudes - overall, "it is a calling," Towns says. "Without Christ in my life, I wouldn't volunteer for this job."

He adds, "All I see is possibilities. I expect only the best. I look only for the best. And that's what I want out of them. It's like a preacher looking for that 'Amen.' I know it's out there, and I'm going to get it out of them one way or the other."

"Who knows what great artists are going to come from these young people?" Towns says. "What they might do is far, far greater than anything that I've ever imagined before. But God can use us, and he is using us all."

More information on the Catoosa Crossroads Academy is available from the school's Web site, http://www.catoosa.k12.ga.us/cca. Information on the availability of "yard critters" for purchase is available at the Dalton Creative Arts Guild's Web site http://www.creativeartsguild.org/mt-newhome/archive/000028.php.

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*Willis is a staff member of United Methodist Communications.

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