ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, June 13, 1996 TAG: 9606140001
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH STAFF WRITER
OFTEN, when families grow up, they also grow away from each other. But each of the winners of this year's Credit Marketing and Management Association's Fathers of the Year contest has worked toward making sure his children are friends as well as siblings.
For O.S. Foster, Father of the Year for Religious Activities, it meant going to church regularly as a family. For Dave Trumbower, Father of the Year for Family Life, it meant establishing rituals, such as toasting marshmallows over an open fire in the woods on the first day it snowed.
For Ben Caldwell, 38, Father of the Year for Youth Activities, the close moments with his family are usually unstructured and spontaneous. Like many families with young children and two careers, Caldwell and his wife, Terrie, a clinical social worker, have their hands full just trying to meet the demands of their jobs and the day-to-day needs of the family.
Fun times are squeezed in between work and chores and outside activities. Caldwell and his son, Benjamin, 14; and his daughters, Ashlyn, 6, and Chelsey, 4, like to play games, talk, roughhouse and just hang out, he said.
"No matter what the task may be," wrote Caldwell's mother-in-law, Carol Leary, in her nominating letter: "calling out spelling words, wrestling, playing ring-around-the-rosy or duck-duck-goose, he shows a warm and caring interest in his children and the time he spends with them is quality time."
Caldwell also shares equally in the household chores, Leary wrote.
It's not easy to do sometimes, Caldwell admitted. He has been a member of the Virginia State Police force for 19 years, and his working hours can be long and irregular. They sometimes interfere with his time with his family, but his wife and his children have been very understanding.
"I try to be there as much as I possibly can. It's difficult not to be there," he said.
Caldwell chose a career in law enforcement because of a lifelong desire to "look after other people."
His compassion for others is obvious in the work he does in his spare time. He has been president of his son's school's PTA, and has coached his basketball, softball and soccer teams, as well as Ashlyn's T-ball team.
Caldwell said he believes that participating in sports gives children a sense of accomplishment. "It gives them the confidence to take on other things and to progress."
Caldwell is very involved in sports himself. He plays softball for his church team and with a group of fellow state troopers. Eleven years ago, he organized a softball tournament with the state police to raise money for the Make-a-Wish foundation.
The tournament has been held every year since then. Caldwell has continued to organize it himself, and since 1985, he and his fellow troopers have raised more than $175,000.
Although Ben was born during his first marriage, Caldwell doesn't have a whole lot of advice for blended families.
"I don't consider mine a stepfamily," he said. "We're just a family."
|n n| O.S. Foster, 67, Father of the Year for Religious Activities, said his children; Thomas, Gary, Carolyn and Jeffery, are "unusually close."
"The love that we had for them, they had for each other," he said.
Foster and his late wife, Jackie, both lost their parents at an early age, so they made an effort to encourage a strong family life. Part of that effort was making sure the children attended church and Sunday school every week.
"Going to church on Sunday was not an option," Foster said.
Bringing up four children wasn't easy, he said. "Finances were sort of tight," but "the most important things don't cost much, like love and caring and affection."
Although the children are all grown now with families of their own, they still call each other often and visit each other's homes.
Jackie died in 1990, after 35 years of marriage, but Foster has kept the family together by cooking dinner twice a month and inviting everyone over.
Foster is "not real thrilled" about cooking, he admitted, but "it gives us an opportunity to see each other."
A native of Marion, Foster served 15 years with the Virginia State Police. He held several other law enforcement jobs before deciding to run for sheriff of Roanoke County in 1968. He is the only Roanoke County sheriff to have served five terms. Although he has been retired since 1987, everywhere he goes, there are people who still call him "Sheriff," he said.
Although he had to campaign for re-election, Foster said he never thought of himself as a politician.
"I thought I was a Christian," he said. "Unless a person wants to run on a set of values such as honesty, integrity and trustworthiness, they shouldn't get into public life, and they shouldn't ask people to support them."
Foster has been active at North Roanoke Baptist Church since its founding in 1957. He was made a deacon at the age of 30, a position he still holds, and he teaches Sunday school, sings in a choir, and spends his spare time visiting and praying with the sick and the elderly.
"When I began to help people, I began to get blessed, too," he said.
Some people would say it takes a lot of guts to spend every day in the overcharged atmosphere of a middle school, where adolescence can be a powerful distraction from academics.
Working with sixth- to eighth-graders is "very challenging," admits Philip Jepson, 48, Father of the Year for Education and principal at James Madison Middle School, but it's a challenge he enjoys.
"I love working with this age group," he said. "You have to earn their respect."
Jepson "takes a personal interest in the students," wrote Janie Wallace, the parent of a student, in her nominating letter.
His goal is "to provide a rich, well-rounded experience for all children, regardless of background or opportunities," wrote Jean Darley, also a parent.
Jepson, a native of Charleston, W.Va., decided to become a teacher after working at a summer camp during breaks from college. He taught for several years in West Virginia before coming to Roanoke. He spent two years as principal at Fairview Elementary, and has been principal at Madison for the past six years.
He and his staff have concentrated on turning the school into a technology center for both students and teachers, offering intensive training in the use of computers and software
Using computers is "a basic skill you need to survive," he said. "Even Taco Bell has computers." Because technology is always changing, "we teach them where to go to get information." Often, Jepson said, the students end up teaching the teachers.
Jepson does his best to attend as many of the school's athletic events as he can. Besides showing the students that he cares about them outside the classroom, it also gives him a connection to them, and gives him something to talk about with them in the halls.
Jepson also had the experience of being principal not only to hundreds of students, but to his own two sons as well.
When Phillip, now 18, and Jason, now 15, attended Madison, "I tried to be scarce around them," he said. "It seemed to work out all right."
To Jepson's surprise and that of his wife Maye, Phillip, who will start classes at Virginia Commonwealth University in the fall, has decided he wants to be a teacher. Jason, a student at Patrick Henry High School, is looking forward to his turn to drive the family's 1977 Nova.
Jepson said his sons have "a positive relationship. They seem to be much more friends that competitors." Jepson said he and Maye did their best to let each boy "be his own person and develop his own skills and interests."
"There should be a lot of laughter in the home," he said, and his family spends a lot of time "talking and laughing and enjoying each other's company."
Jepson said he tries to teach both his students and his own children that "material things are not the ultimate. Fulfillment comes in helping other people."
David Trumbower, 46, Father of the Year for Family life, admits that he and his wife, Vickie, have very few interests outside the home. They have devoted themselves to rearing their three children: Alison, 21; Dave, 18; and Adam, 11, who came up with the idea of nominating his father for the award.
That devotion means attending every sporting event, going on numerous camping expeditions, making three trips in one weekend to Charlottesville when Alison was a student at the University of Virginia, and even sitting in on her slumber parties when she was small.
"He always has time for us," wrote Adam in his nominating letter.
While that kind of family togetherness might make some kids run screaming from their parents, the Trumbower children seem to genuinely enjoy and appreciate their father's company.
"He was my friend, the one I could call at anytime," Alison wrote in her nominating letter.
"Mr. Trumbower is everyone's father, everyone's friend, everyone's confidant," wrote Ariela Rozman, a college friend of Alison's. "My dad is wonderful," wrote Adam. During Alison's college career, Trumbower and the rest of the family did their best to share in all the major events. Rather than making Alison too dependent on her family, that closeness has fostered a sense of adventure in her. Last summer, she spent several weeks alone in Europe and this fall, she will tackle her first job - living all by herself in New York City.
Trumbower's interest in children is professional as well as personal.
After earning a bachelor's degree in history from Hampden-Sydney College, he went on to receive a master's degree in education from Radford University.
He taught for six years at Glenvar High School, was an assistant principal at William Byrd Middle School, and principal at Clearbrook and Green Valley elementary schools.
"My dad's definition of family goes far beyond the immediate," Alison wrote. "At a time when so many children are thirsting for love and attention, my dad attempted to give both to each and every one of the 300 plus children that made up the student body at [Green Valley].""I've always liked working with young people," Trumbower said. "I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of that.
For the past two years, Trumbower has been a visiting teacher for Roanoke County schools. "It's the equivalent of a truant officer," he said.
If that seems like a strange career choice for a man who loves children and has been loved by them in return, Trumbower explains it this way: "It can be a positive thing. It's a chance to get kids headed in the right direction. I don't need immediate gratification. In the long term, it's the right thing for them."
Trumbower's methods of dealing with his own children are exactly what one would expect from a school principal.
"I believe in a lot of structure and discipline," he said. For instance, talking back is not allowed, and everyone has chores to do. "We enforce [the rules], and we don't let things slide. Sometimes, the most loving thing you can say to a child is 'no.'"
On the other hand, he said, it's important to celebrate the good things the children do.
"Hopefully, they will look at home as a warm and friendly place to be."
Roger Vest, 48, Father of the Year for Civic Affairs, had a grandmother who had 13 children and lived to be 96. When people asked her how she kept so many children out of trouble, Vest said she always told them: " I give them something to do."
It's a philosophy he followed in rearing his own four children, three of whom are now grown and involved in careers. The youngest, Jessica, 18, is a sophomore in college.
The children were active in sports, in church programs and with hobbies, and Vest got involved along with them.
"I always tried to have some time for whatever project they wanted to do," he said.
When the oldest son, Jonathan, now 26, became interested in antique cars, Vest bought an old junker and helped him restore it.
When his oldest daughter, Amy, 24, played high school softball, there was no money for a bus driver to take the girls to their games, she wrote in her nominating letter, so her father got a commercial driver's license and drove them himself.
Jonathan and his younger brother, Eric, 21, worked for Vest at the contracting business he owns with his father, Hugh Vest, who is now retired. At home, there were plenty of chores for the children to do around the house and on the family's small farm, where Vest raises a few beef cattle, mostly as a hobby.
In 1988, Vest was instrumental in helping charter Back Creek's volunteer fire department and rescue squad. He is now a deputy chief, and his wife, Sharon, is a paramedic. Both of the boys volunteered with the squad when they were old enough, and today, Amy is a rookie firefighter in Chesterfield County.
Vest also has been involved in the controversy over the widening of U.S. 221. Although his own farm is in the path of the proposed expansion, he began to support the project after a good friend died when his car ran off one of the road's sharp curves.
When his children were in school, Vest was active in the Parent Teacher Association and in the high school booster club. He also is a member of the Knights of Columbus, and spends a considerable amount of time involved in that group's charity work.
Getting involved in civic projects means "being able to help your neighbors," Vest said. "It's surprising what a group of people can accomplish. I just want to be a member of the community."
LENGTH: Long : 237 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff 1. Honored as 1996 Fathers of the yearby CNBare (from left): Philip Jepson, Dave Trumbower, Roger Vest, Ben
Caldwell and O.S. Foster. Color. 2. Headshots of all five fathers.