DATE: Thursday, November 6, 1997            TAG: 9711040159

SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS         PAGE: 03   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: THUMBS UP 

SOURCE: Kathryn Darling 

                                            LENGTH:   89 lines

HER PASSION IS SWIMMING NORFOLK WOMAN GIVES 40 YEARS AS A RED CROSS AQUATIC INSTRUCTOR.

Mary Helen Thomas, 72, spent the summers of her childhood swimming and playing on the beaches of Bayview.

It was during the Depression. Nobody went on vacation because nobody had any money, she says. And nobody had a car.

So families traveled to the beach by trolley, often renting a changing room at her father's convenience store on the corner of Ocean View and Cape View avenues.

Thomas' memories of those days are wonderful, she says, except for the sirens.

Everyone in the Bayview neighborhood could hear the firetrucks and would follow them to the beach. The children and the parents would circle 'round, watching while firemen tried to resuscitate drowning victims, she says.

``They managed to save some. And some they didn't.''

It left an impression on Thomas, who for the past 40 years has worked with the Red Cross teaching lifesaving, swimming, synchronized swimming and water safety instruction.

``I guess deep down inside of me was the desire to make it a safe beach,'' she said.

Thomas was a housewife and a mother in 1957 when she and a friend took a swimming class through the Red Cross. Though she'd grown up on the beach, she'd never had formal instruction, and was a self-styled swimmer, she says.

That class led to another and then to Red Cross instructor training on the national level.

Paul Jackson, local director of Safety Programs and Disaster Services for the American Red Cross from 1955 to 1984, says he saw Thomas's potential right away and sent her for training on the national level.

A whim became a hobby, took hold and became a passion, then a career.

For 30 years, Thomas directed aquatics for the Norfolk YWCA. They didn't have a pool so, she taught in the open water of Ocean View beaches, at the pool in the Cavalier Hotel, in private back-yard pools and at above ground pools covered by a plastic bubble, which extended the swimming season into November.

She also volunteered as an instructor for the Red Cross and the Norfolk Boys Club on Colonial Avenue.

As cities and different organizations developed more pools, Thomas' influence spread. A certified American Red Cross instructor, she taught children, adults and instructors at pools throughout Hampton Roads.

In 1987, Thomas retired from the YWCA, and the YWCA retired their aquatics program at the same time, she said.

But Thomas hasn't completely retired. She continues to teach aquatics year-round for various organizations and still serves on the local Red Cross water safety committee. She also keeps up with changes the Red Cross makes as it updates and improves its standards and procedures.

``Nothing has changed more than Red Cross swimming instruction and books,'' she said.

When she began in 1957, she was taught out of books published in 1920. And in the last two years, she's had to study a lot to keep up with the new, revised books.

``What you did that was right before is wrong now, or . . . not the accepted method, I should say.''

Every day at noon, Thomas swims a mile and a half at the Northside Recreation Center Pool.

Thomas doesn't let anything keep her from her swimming or teaching. Even after a string of deaths in her family - her husband, Ellis G. Thomas, and her daughter-in-law, Beverly Thomas, died in 1996 and her son, Moody Thomas, died in 1995 - she kept swimming and teaching.

``I think you can dwell too long on things that are unpleasant,'' she said.

Thomas' consistency and persistence have set her apart from other Red Cross instructors.

Renee Figurelle began working with Thomas eight years ago when she took her position as director of community education with the Red Cross.

``When I have a question about a program or a complaint from an instructor about how a program is run, I ask her for advice,'' Figurelle said.

Thomas will go and observe the class and report back with a solution or conclusion.

Thomas makes the water safety programs run, said Figurelle.

``She always challenges us to be better,'' she said.

On a recent fall night students, teachers and recreation center employees gathered to celebrate Thomas' 40 years of service with the Red Cross and to thank her for her efforts to teach people how to swim, how to save lives and how to pass those skills on to others.

``She is the Red Cross and what the Red Cross is all about,'' Figurelle told the crowd. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by GARY C. KNAPP

Mary Helen Thomas, taking a dip at the Northside Recreation Center

pool, has promoted water safety through the YWCA and Red Cross.

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