Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 18, 1993 TAG: 9304150256
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MELANIE S. HATTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
LIKE A MOM
MARION Crenshaw stepped into the spacious recreation area of the Coyner Springs Detention Center in Botetourt County off U.S. 460. A tall, slim teen-ager in jeans and a T-shirt walked across the tidy room and wrapped his arms around her. Crenshaw returned the hug."What are you doing here?" she demanded quietly. The young man started to explain, but Crenshaw stopped him. "I do not want you down here," she scolded. The teen turned his head away.
"Look at me. I'm serious. I do not want you down here."
Officially, the Roanoke youth planner's job is to steer teen-agers away from trouble and give them a positive push. Unofficially, Crenshaw's job is mother to every young person she encounters. Give her a moment, and she'll take an hour to explain what teen-agers face and what can be done to help them.
"Prevention is the key to the success of the future" of young people who face crime, drugs and teen-age pregnancy, she says.
She calls on the community "to be an extended family" to the valley's youth. "Our resources are the young people. Let them help us make the decisions. They're part of the solution."
To that end, she takes every opportunity to guide and discipline. She doesn't hesitate to put her foot down when she believes she's got to teach young people manners.
At a dance last year organized by the youth office volunteers, Crenshaw stopped the event when she saw teen-agers dancing lewdly.
"I didn't think that was appropriate behavior," she said. "And I would have been less of an adult if I'd let it go on. We are feeding what we want to get rid of if we don't do anything about it."
Bill Hackley Jr., 24, has known Crenshaw since he was a teen. Before getting a position as neighborhood facilitator with the city, he interned with the youth office. Now, "she's always checking on me, asking how I'm doing."
She's direct and won't hesitate to take someone aside and tell them to straighten up, something she did "more than a few times" with him, Hackley said.
But her strictness is balanced by a soft heart. Youth Advisory Committee member Mac McLean recalled one year when the committee surprised Crenshaw with a birthday party. "I had to run and get tissues" because she had started to cry, McLean said.
Getting into trouble means "you lose everything," she told four Patrick Henry High School students she had taken on a visit to Coyner Springs. "You have to keep control. Stay in school. . . . The key is to think for yourself."
Once a week she spends about two hours with these teens, who are part of an in-house program at Patrick Henry, the Interdisciplinary Team. The program is for kids having trouble with class work; its goal is to boost their self-esteem by introducing them to volunteer projects.
Crenshaw has been the group's guide through City Hall and its services. "It takes a big chunk out of my day," she says, "but it's worth it" to open the teen-agers' eyes to the workings of their hometown.
Crenshaw, 46, was hired in July 1980 by the city to run its newly formed Office on Youth. The office was established to promote youth development and coordinate programs to keep young people from getting into trouble.
Recently, the office received a grant to fund a community-based drug counseling program for teen-agers that begins May 1. The grant request was written by Crenshaw and fellow city employee Vicki Price.
For six years before joining the city, Crenshaw was coordinator of group foster homes for Mental Health Services of Roanoke; she worked for Total Action Against Poverty for seven before that.
As a neighborhood worker with TAP, she visited communities in Botetourt County, where she grew up as one of 12 children. While working with TAP, she said, she realized society should use its young people because they have the energy and enthusiasm to make changes in their neighborhoods.
She continues to bring young people's voices into the city's youth programs.
Crenshaw "is very innovative. She has a real strength in working with people," said Assistant City Manager Jim Ritchie. She has a unique understanding of teen-agers, he added, and her ability to talk to teens has "brought a better understanding citywide of the concerns of young people."
The Office on Youth has expanded over the years - more in scope than physically. Until last month, Crenshaw was the office's only paid employee. Now she has an assistant, Meg Munton, who splits time between Crenshaw and another city department.
"I've been blessed," she says of Munton's help.
But having an assistant hasn't slowed Crenshaw's pace any. Her day begins around 8 a.m. and often ends late in the evening. She hurries from one meeting to another, keeping in touch with youth centers, teen-pregnancy programs and city-sponsored youth activities. She rarely stops for lunch.
"You gotta slow down," said Will Claytor, the city's real-estate valuation director, one day in her office. "This job will be here long after you and I are gone."
"I'm learning that," Crenshaw replied sheepishly. In fact, she spent a week in the hospital at the end of January with heart trouble.
Tears filled her eyes at the memory. "I was scared," she said, absently placing her hand on her chest.
Last year was difficult. Her mother, Ada B. Vaughn, died in Clifton Forge at 72, and Crenshaw's divorce became final.
But she moves forward into 1993 with fervor.
"If I ever give up to the pain, I might not be here," she said. "If you can help it, you can't give in to your aches and pains."
In the late 1980s, she underwent a hip replacement because of problems with her bones and blood clotting in her left thigh.
She was in and out of work for almost two years. Her hip aches when she's been on her feet too long or when the weather is bad.
"I don't dwell on it and try to smile when I hurt," she said. "I do get down, but I try to bounce back." She gains strength from her faith in God - she regularly attends Louden Avenue Christian Church - her friends and family. In city hall, there's no one Crenshaw doesn't talk to. Corridor encounters with co-workers, old friends and acquaintances are cheerful, often with hugs and kisses. She even shouts a "Hi, how's the wife and your mother-in-law?" to the United Parcel Service man.
"When I've been here for as long as I have, you have to know everybody," she says.
And, it seems, everybody has a kind word to say about Marion Crenshaw.
"She has a genuine kind heart," Hackley said. "She cares about every last kid in the community."
"She's a very sweet person," said Crenshaw's only child, 25-year-old Stacie Howard. "But she believes in discipline. . . . She really believes children should always respect adults." Howard is a teacher's assistant at Westside Elementary School.
The Virginia Skyline Girl Scout Council recently nominated Crenshaw as a "woman of distinction" because of her work with the Office on Youth and her commitment to children.
"It's a wonderful honor," she said, but she doesn't like to take full credit for anything. She considers herself a catalyst in a community that works together. She sits on the boards of the United Way of the Roanoke Valley, the Kiwanis Club and Friends of the Symphony - a sampling of the organizations she has participated in over the years.
"We don't do anything in this world alone," Crenshaw said. "This [life] is no dress rehearsal. If we don't go through here with all we have, then why are we here?"
Keywords:
PROFILE