It was hard for Chris Brown to learn he couldn't count on his father.
Each time his father called to say he was coming from Memphis for a visit, Chris would march his 4-year-old self outside to stand watch. He'd wait on the porch of his North Chattanooga home for the man he wanted so desperately to admire.
For hours he would sit there patiently, hopes high. He abandoned his post only after his mother delivered the news he already knew: His dad was never coming back.
"I was angry. I was just very bitter toward my father," said Mr. Brown, now 17.
As he grew up, it was tough watching his mother struggle to support him. As a youngster, he thought about ways to help out, even if it meant selling drugs to make some money.
When he was about 10, Mr. Brown's mom, Tina Norwood, convinced him to attend a Sunday school taught by a man who would become one of the most influential people in his life.
Big guy
Ed Hines is a big guy. At 6 foot 2 and 210 pounds, the 59-year-old has the shoulders of a linebacker, but the white, toothy grin of a softie. Many of the young men he has mentored through Sunday school, Boys Club of Chattanooga and OnPoint are struck first by his physical presence. Then they listen to what he has to say.
"I had an in-depth conversation with him in church one day," Mr. Brown said. "He told me, 'If you just look ahead in 10 years and better yourself, you're going to help your mother so much more by doing the right thing.'
"At the time, I could have been sucked down that path (of gangs and drugs). I could have been dead or in jail. He told me I didn't have to do that. He told me, 'I'm going to show you what this path is and I'm going to stick with you.'"
Like generations of fatherless men in Chattanooga, Mr. Brown said Mr. Hines taught him that being good, listening to authority and treating women with respect are worth trying.
"In Chattanooga, there are a lot of positive women, but what men need are other good men who can guide them," Mr. Brown said. "When a grown man tells you what's right, you listen."
It's a lesson Mr. Hines says he learned from his late father, James Hines.
"My father was a real father," he said. "He was involved in the church, always respectful to my mom. I wanted to be like him."
But in the years since Mr. Hines' childhood, he noticed few young men in his community had the benefit of two-parent households. Few had neighborhood mentors or fathers worth looking up to.
30 years of effort
So he's taken on the challenge himself. For the past 30 years, he's tried to fill the void left in children's lives by absentee fathers.
"I encourage them to go out there and make their mothers proud," he said. "They appreciate me being a father figure for them. That's so rewarding for me coming from grown men with families."
Lesley Scearce is the executive director of OnPoint, a youth development program and Mr. Hines' current employer. She said Mr. Hines barely can go anywhere in Chattanooga without running into somebody from one of about four generations he has mentored.
"Ed shows me that making an impact is not about programs, it's about people," she said. "He's really gifted at looking for young men who need a little extra encouragement. Ed isn't in and out of their lives. He sticks. He's consistent. You can teach kids all day long, but equally important, if not more so, is investing time in them."
Chris Ramsey, manager of pharmacy programs for BlueCross Blue Shield of Tennessee, first met Mr. Hines nearly 40 years ago in the local Boys Club. Since then, Mr. Ramsey, 44, began serving on the organization's board, thanks in part to the influence of Mr. Hines.
"I didn't have a father growing up. ... Mr. Hines gave me the guidance I needed and kept me on the right track," Mr. Ramsey said. "His commitment, his dedication to what he's about, his passion for serving kids. It's really his ministry."
Five schools
As program director at OnPoint, Mr. Hines stays involved in mentoring students through weekly visits to five local high schools. He likes telling the story of a Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School senior on the verge of not graduating.
The student, who had become a friend of Mr. Hines', was about three credits behind schedule. Determined, Mr. Hines got up every day at 6 a.m., drove to North Georgia and talked the teenager through early morning tutoring sessions.
The student graduated in May.
"I'm so glad," Mr. Hines said, animatedly gesturing with his hands. "I encouraged him, and we made it."
Mr. Brown, a rising senior at Hixson High School, always has wanted to go into politics. But watching Mr. Hines' impact on young people has made him think he might continue at his current job at the North Chattanooga Recreation Center. One day he hopes to be an administrator and be a role model and mentor for other young men.
Every time he sees Mr. Hines, he thanks him again.
"People think a father is your biological father, but no. It's every man that has had a positive impact on your life," Mr. Brown said. "He's my stepdaddy, and on Father's Day, he will get a call from me."
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