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Monday, July 28, 1997

Longtime Boys Ranch administrator says change was always important

By MARK BABINECK Associated Press Writer

CAL FARLEY'S BOYS RANCH, Texas (AP) - It seems as if they've been hanging onto Lamont Waldrip's shirttail forever.

"He's been out here 42 years, so you've got to be a strong person to stick it out that long through all kinds of different changes," said Daniel Hays, 17, one of the current crop of changed lives at Cal Farley's Boys Ranch.

Waldrip and his wife, Frances, will leave the place they've spent their entire married life on Friday when he retires as campus superintendent. With them go one of the last links to Farley, who founded this renowned outpost for wayward boys in 1939.

For ranchers willing to work hard, study and live by Christian values, Farley and his staff promised in return "a shirttail to hang onto."

"It would be hard to describe or put into words what he actually thought, saw and wanted," said Waldrip of Farley, who died during a Boys Ranch church service in 1967, 12 years into Waldrip's tenure. "I have a pretty good feel we're headed where we're headed and what he wanted to do."

To be sure, this desolate Oldham County tract an hour northwest of Amarillo barely resembles the ranch Farley established at the abandoned courthouse in what once was the lawless Old West cattle town of Tascosa.

Landowner Julian Bivins donated 120 acres along the Canadian River to fuel the dreams of Farley, an Amarillo businessman and former wrestler. The old film "Boys Ranch" immortalized the place for moviegoers nationwide.

Other than some funding for the public school on campus, the ranch receives no government money. Neither is it tied to a religious denomination, a choice Farley made to keep his ranch free to choose its own paths.

A foundation fueled by private philanthropy keeps Boys Ranch running; there is no fee to send children to the ranch.

The campus has expanded continuously over the years. In 1961, the last boys were moved out of the courthouse, now the Julian Bivins Museum. The facility's best-known product would graduate six years later.

"Mr. Waldrip was one of the first people to give me a spanking when I was there," said former U.S. Rep. Bill Sarpalius, who escaped poverty and homelessness on the streets of Houston when he was 10. "He's a godsend. He was somebody that had the same type of vision Cal Farley had. He dedicated his life to helping boys, he and his wife and his brother (Roger)."

Corporal punishment faded from the ranchers' disciplined lifestyle last year. It wasn't uncommon for misdeeds to be remedied with sore bottoms until then.

"That proves to me he remembered it (the spanking)," said Waldrip, who added that he doesn't regret the elimination of swats. "I never gave a lot of spankings, but when I did I gave pretty good ones. I wanted them to be remembered."

Spanking continues in the Paul Thorade home, though only for his two natural children. For Thorade, who with his wife cares for 14 ranchers, the elimination of corporal punishment was only one sign that things might be changing too fast here.

He opposes the unilateral use of a prescription parenting technique being installed by ranch president Wes Taylor. Used rigidly, Thorade said STEP, or Systematic Training for Effective Parenting, flies in the face of Farley's ideals of "affectionate discipline."

"According to Mr. Taylor, we've been told to work within the STEP program, but also to use common sense when you get in a situation where a child is totally disrespectful and disobedient," said Thorade, who arrived here last summer. "STEP is not the problem. It's when you say it strictly has to be STEP, that's the problem."

The basic idea of STEP, a method originally laid out in the early 1970s, is that discipline is best accomplished through natural consequences. For instance, a child who refuses to eat should go hungry, or a child who breaks another's bicycle should have it fixed.

Taylor said the program is an advancement of Farley's ideals, not a deviation from them.

"We're teaching people how to employ STEP in accordance with what we want to preserve and accomplish through the Cal Farley model of care," said Taylor.

Taylor, speaking from his office at Cal Farley's Boys Ranch and Affiliates headquarters in Amarillo, also oversees the all-female Girlstown U.S.A. west of Lubbock and Cal Farley's Family Program, for pre-adolescent children, near Borger.

Thorade, a career military man and prison guard in North Carolina, said God inspired him to write a lengthy column in the Amarillo Globe-News criticizing STEP. He was asked to resign but has chosen to stay, he said.

A 300-member alumni group yanked its support for Taylor's administration over the squabble, though the board of directors has given him a vote of confidence.

Despite coming from Farley's "old school," Waldrip said he hasn't hindered Taylor's new ideas.

"We've gone through changes since day one," said Waldrip, the ranch superintendent since 1976. "Mr. Farley's philosophy was, 'Let's try it, let's make it work. He wanted to stay out of the government business so as not to get tied in where he couldn't make changes, because change is good."

Waldrip refuses to dwell on the controversy in the days before he and Frances move 75 miles down the road to Canyon. Besides, he said, the STEP brouhaha is nothing compared to going coed in 1991.

"Girls didn't create much of a difference," said Waldrip, who leaves a campus with 22 boys' homes and three for girls. "If anything, it helped by making (Boys Ranch) a more normal situation."

The difference between the times can best be expressed by comparing current rancher Hays to Sarpalius, who came in the 1960s, Waldrip said.

While Hays saw examples of substance abuse and violence all around him - his best friend is on Death Row - Sarpalius came from a far more impoverished background. He and two younger brothers essentially were homeless when their grandfather made a phone call on Christmas Day, 1960.

On the other end was an old wrestling acquaintance, Cal Farley.

"The government began to get more involved with homeless kids, or kids that have been abused," said Sarpalius, a Democrat who served three terms in Congress after eight in the Texas Senate. "Back when I was a kid, there were no programs like that available."

Neither were the drugs and weapons that Hays saw in Harris County, though Sarpalius added that wayward children in his time would have partaken in those vices had they had access to them.

While Sarpalius credits his grandfather for pointing him here, Hays thanks his condemned friend.

"He wrote me a letter telling me to change and to stay out of jail, stay away from alcohol and drugs," said Hays, a five-year ranch veteran who plans to join the Marine Corps next year and pursue his dream of boxing in the Olympics.

Not all of Hays' counterparts are as enthusiastic. Like many other children faced with long days packed with manual labor and studying, some ranchers complain about chores, the hardships of rural life and homesickness.

"Who out here wouldn't rather be home?" said rancher Cameron Tigg in a newspaper interview last year. "I know this is the best place for me. If I wasn't here, I'd probably be in jail right now."

When school is in, boys at the Thorade home start the day with house tasks before classes begin. Afterward, it's usually time for work, dinner and studying. The ranch's televisions are rarely aglow.

The houses very much resemble typical suburban homes. Typically, a large living area is flanked by the house parents' living quarters. Two hallways on either side of the living room lead to the boys' rooms, which are expected to remain pristine at all times.

House parents routinely work 18-hour days for a combined income starting at less than $30,000 annually. Of course, housing is provided and food at the cafeteria is free.

On days off, the Thorades and others invariably cart their own children to Amarillo.

"You need that time alone whether it's just to take the kids roller-skating, go to the park or do Putt-Putt golf," said Thorade, adding that his children have meshed with the ranchers very well.

The Waldrips raised two sons and two daughters here.

"It was the greatest thing I ever did," Lamont Waldrip said. "My kids received things here I couldn't have given them anywhere else. They got pushed back (attention-wise) a few times, but learned how to share."

Sarpalius' first of thousands of public speaking appearances was a sermon he gave here on Feb. 19, 1967. It was on that Sunday that an ailing Farley died on the back pew.

"That was the turning point of my life," said Sarpalius. "I made up my mind that day I wanted to do something to help people."

As Waldrip and his wife prepare to live elsewhere for the first time since 1955, he happily says he has no regrets.

"These boys came from broken homes and real difficult backgrounds," he said. "We wanted them to see a normal family, which my wife and I tried to have. Maybe we didn't - it's not necessarily normal to have 36 kids - and it doesn't mean we didn't disagree sometimes. But we usually did a pretty good job with it." Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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