Camp Martin Johnson Heritage Museum “Fitting” Room

One of the rooms in the Martin Johnson Heritage Museum in Irons, Michigan, is devoted to some of the wearing material that both campers and staff wore such as sweatshirts and jackets that bore the camp’s name. I would suppose that some of these articles of clothing are from various decades of camp?

Perhaps some silk screening could be added to the museum so that sweatshirts and jackets could bear the museum’s name as another source of revenue for the museum.  It would also keep the camp and museum’s name alive as a great source of advertising. 

I know that when I marketed my Joplin Boys Club in this manner my staff and kids became walking billboards in the community and the same could be accomplished at the museum to keep its name alive in the area and perhaps increase tourism there.  On our Museum Page I suggested a chili contest held annually on the grounds of the museum as another revenue generator. 

Perhaps our readers have other ways and means of keeping the camp and museum name alive.  Leave us a comment in that regard.

The Joplin Boys and Girls Club Facility

The Joplin Boys and Girls Club has expanded in size since I was there in 1979-81. It has two gymnasiums now with the larger one on the end. The present Executive Director recently sent me these photographs of the actual building itself. In a few days I will showcase the exterior facility behind this building.

I was amazed to find a school bus vehicle and van as part of this clubs mobile fleet as well as what appears to be a truck. I wonder what the utility bills for this club are as there is much space both to heat and light. I was present at the club for the new building phase of the front of the club which was attached to our present gymnasium at that time. The new building was enclosed but not finished. I often used the new building back door to get to our athletic field behind the club.

It would appear that the newest gym was inserted over our old black top area which was just outside our gymnasium. The kids of Joplin are most fortunate to have this much space to play and learn in and I’m sure the community is most proud of this facility.

Where the large parking lot now stands is where the old club once stood.

The Joplin Boys Club Pine River Float Trip

Going to our property in Michigan was not an option for the Joplin Boys Club as the distance was too great. Thus, I looked for other venues to provide the boys with outdoor adventure and one was our visit to Arkansas and the Pine River for a ten-mile float trip. Being 6’10″, I didn’t sit well in a canoe, especially for that distance, so I opted for a john boat which is a really big rowboat.The boat livery manager said I would be coming in dead last.

So four canoes and one john boat set off on the Pine River at 10 am.  We passed by huge granite cliffs that made me feel so small and the were honeycombed with caves but we had no time to stop.  Some of the boys stopped off on small islands in the middle of the river to take a quick swim.  I, however, made slow but steady pace along the river. 

When we were about five miles from our pick-up place we headed into a head wind that was fierce which made both rowing and paddling extremely difficult.  As our trip ended only one canoe beat me in which surprised the livery manager as he literally dropped his cigar into the river. 

On the way back to Joplin we stopped at Kentucky Fried Chicken and I realized how much of an appetite one can get by taking a float trip.  It was great fun but next time we needed to allow more time to explore those caves.  But, then, that’s another story.

Boys and Girls Club Awards Night

Award nights are always great for youth groups as they honor and reward achievements throughout the year. At Hoffman Estates, my Board of Directors informed me that attendance would be light however I still set up 100 chairs for the event and all but two were filled. Virginia Hayter, the mayor of Hoffman Estates was a special guest and she had to get up on a chair to give me a welcome kiss as I am 6’10″.

The evening was capped off by oour guest speaker who was Al Mackin, Director of the Union League Boys Club Camp in Salem, Wisconsin. Previously all the awards were passed out for all the events that were held throughout the year. However one award was left out and that came after Al’s speech. It was the Boy of the Year Award and our version was a trophy nearly four feet high. Danny Heisen won for his achievements as a club ad Torch Club leader. He was als President of our Consumer Research Club. One of our Board of Director members then treated us all to a night at Steak and Shake on the house.

At the Joplin Boys Club, again, my Board of Directors felt that no parents would attend our first awards night. I set up a 100 chairs and all were filled. I even had to pull down two sections of beachers for the overflow crowd yet only one of my board members attended. All the boys received their trophies and one came out with another large Boy of the Year trophy.

I don’t know why boards are skeptical of attenance at awards nights?

The Joplin Boys Club Softball and Bubbleball Field

This is the Joplin Boys and Girls Club circa 2010 however it looked almost exactly the same as when I was the Executive Director there back in 1979. We used this field for both softball and bubbleball games. As to the latter, bubbleball was played using a plastic beachball type ball that could be purchased at nearly any drugstore. It was light in weight and about as big as a basketball.

Games were seven innings long with two outs per inning. The difficulty of this game was due to the lightweight of the ball as it was greatly affected by the wind. A pitched ball might be heading right to the plate then taken way outside by the wind. Some of our older members became highly frustrated by that. Also once hit, the ball could fly over second base high in the sky and the wind take it into foul territory.

Windy days indeed proved a challenge for bubbleball. Another aspect to this game is that the ball could be tossed at baserunners anywhere below the neck in order to get them out. This game was greatly enjoyed by the kids there and even became part of the Superstars events against adult teams from the community.

New to this field are those metal bleachers you see on each side of the baselines as well as a fence extending around the entire activity field.

Boys Club Transitions

I wanted to take a look back at the five Boys Clubs of America that I was a part of during that time of my life.

1.  Marion, Indiana:  I was the Educational Director there and part of my job was to host  weekly television program on Channel 23.  That club has now been sold to a church and has relocated to just south of Indiana Wesleyan University.  It was from here and from Taylor University that many of my guest speakers came from.

2.  Salesian, Columbus, Ohio.  This club was located in downtown Columbus and closed down a few years ago for a lack of financial resources.  Part of my job there was to work at St. Ladislaus as their physical education director.  The club itself has  pool, gymnasium with a running track over the gym, and an eight lane bowling alley.

3.  Hoffman Estates, Illinois.  This was my first job as an Executive Director and I had a renovated barn with an excellent outside facility including a football field and two softball fields.   The director after my tenure caused the club to close down and the building itself was removed.

4.  Joplin, Missouri:  I was again the Executive Director of this club and oversaw their new facility which was partly opened during my tenure.  Since that time, the old building has been razed and a second gym installed. 

5.  Bradenton, Florida.  This club remains the same to this day with no physical changes. 

Of course over the span of some twenty-five years changes are inevitable and progress must be a part of any expansion plan.  It was sad, though, to learn that Hoffman Estates and the Salesian clubs are no longer in operation.

Joplin Boys Club Learning Center

My interest in educational programs for Boys Clubs of America began in Marion, Indiana, when I was hired by the Marion Public Library and Librarian Jane Ballard to become the Educational Director at the local club.  She envisioned a reading program there but I did much more including a guest speaker program with teachers from Marion College and Taylor University.  We also had an extensive Quiz Bowl program including the Obstacle Course Quiz and Whiz Bowl. 

At Hoffman Estates Boys Club I continued this kind of programming however when I first arrived at the facility rich Joplin Boys Club I was dismayed to find no library program whatsoever.  Yes, they had a large gymnasium, boxing gym, woodshop, soccer fields, arts and crafts area, games rooms, but no library facility at all. 

However in the new building under construction, just behind the present building, a Learning Center was in the plans.  However, I began to develop a sound educational program by purchasing the SRA Reading Program which stressed phonics and vocabulary skills.  Even the Joplin Public School System didn’t have that sort of unit.  I also incorporated Quiz Bowls into the program immediately.

I am now gratified to learn that the current Joplin Boys and Girls Club has retained the Learning Center concept and even added computer programming to it.  I always felt that Boys Clubs of America needed a strong educational program to add to the sports emphasis to make a truly great organization.  It is good to learn that lesson hasn’t been dropped from the current Joplin staff.

My Ideal Boys Club

Of the two clubs where I served as Executive Director, I would have to say that I favored the Hoffman Estates Boys Club over that of the Joplin Boys Club. As to the latter it was an old one time orphange that needed a lot of repair work. Today a new club stands in its place. Part of that new club in Joplin was already there when I was there in the late 1970′s. The gymnasium was fully constructed and the front part of the club still under construction. Since then they have added a second gymnasium.

Joplin had a woodshop, arts and crafts center, a boxing gym, and games rooms. The outside area included a large field with a softball diamond on one end.

Yet my ideal boys club was the Hoffman Estates club (pictured above) even though it was a renovated barn. To each side of the facility was a field, one used for football and softball and the other for field hockey and soccer. Behind the club was another softball field.

The club itself had a concession stand to the exterior and another one within the club. The first floor had a games room, restrooms, library, and arts and crafts room with the second floor housing the gymnasium.

I liked his club because it had a membership that appreciated te programs that we had to offer including a camping program with the Union League Boys Club Camp in Salem, Wisconsin, through my association with then camp director Al Mackin. In the 60′s I served as a counselor at that summer camp.

We had a very active program at Hoffman Estates using the most of the facilities we had. It was my ideal club because the outside facilities matched those of the inside facility. We had a solid educational program at Hoffman Estates as well as a creative arts and crafts program that included an art fair at the Schaumburg Public Library.

In my last year there the club was known as the Hoffman Estates / Schaumburg Boys Club which it should have been from the beginning as the two communities backed up to each other. This club was razed shortly after I left it due to a lack of good programming by the new director which caused the United Way to cease funding it. That has always saddened me but I left the area for what I considered a better offer in Joplin. There I had a full staff and radio and television for marketing purposes.

Still, it was the Hoffman Estates Boys Club that made me the most proud.

The Joplin Boys Club Superstars

If you want your community engaged in your boys and girls clubs, start a Superstars competition. Our intitial venture into Superstars came by way of inviting television and radio personalities as well as civic leaders like the Mayor of Joplin and the Superintendent of Schools, to participate in the best of seven events versus the older members of the club. Initial events included passball, basketball, track, softball, bubbleball, eight ball pool, and frisbee golf. The concept was so well liked by the visiting team that they requested another event the very next week between radio and television personalities.

Then the Downtown Joplin Association requested a challenge the next week. That was followed by a challenge to the Springfield Boys Club so all in all there were four of these events held in one month.

If you want the public engaged in your boys and girls club work there is no better way than to have them involved in ACTIVE participation so they see for themselves what you are trying to accomplish. By the way, I’m the one in the red slacks.

Superstars was a concept I had developed at the Joplin Boys Club that became so popular that in one month we had four of them. What you see here is me doing the lineups for Bubbleball. Our Athletic Field also saw Softball played at this same location later in the day.

Farther down the athletic field, without a fence in those days, was a Frisbee Golf Course while in the middle of our field was the Track Event. In all four events took place on our athletic field. One event took place on our blacktopped exterior court, that being Passball. Eight Ball Pool was our games room event, while basketball was the seventh and final event in the gymnasium.

The kids won the track meet, bubbleball game, and Passball, while the adults took Frisbee Golf, Eight Ball Pool, and Softball. Our kids were salivating at the tie knowing tha basketball would settle it but little did they know the superintendent of schools could put his elbows on the rim. The adults won the basketball game with ease thus shattering the dreams of an upset by the kids.

Joplin Boys and Girls Club Athletic Field

If you look closely you can now see that the grassy field of the Joplin Boys Club has been enclosed by a very high fence. That fence was not in existence in the days I was their Executive Director but over the course of time that field has been used by undesirables to the point where a fence was needed to be installed.

I suppose that is a sign of the times. At least now the kids can use the field and feel safe doing so. The club no longer has a soccer program that once was afflicated with GOSA (Greater Ozark Soccer Association) and I applaud that decision. All too often I thought that the once a week kids got preference over the daily children.

Now that field can be developed for other purposes now that soccer is no longer a part of the club. They have a goodly amount of grounds and now also have a full playground area installed. The changes are for the better.

Remembering Richard Barkley of the Joplin Boys Club

Here you can observe some fence cleaning at the Joplin Boys Club. When I was the Executive Director at the club I had three janitors and one was a very colorful one known as Richard Barkely who also just happened to serve as our night watchman. He had a small apartment within the facility. As for his watchman status, well, he wasn’t the best. On my second day at the club I came in at 5:00 am to clean up the storage room which was right next to Barkley’s apartment.

I probably made quite a bit of noise as I separated the junk from the material I wanted saved and through all that noise, Barkley slept right through it all.  When he finally woke up at 8:30 am, I said, “Some watchman we have here.  A crook could have cleaned out the whole place and you wouldn’t have heard a thing“.  

Now Barkley was also probably the only person I ever met who ate spagetti and ice cream at the same time.  As I looked in amazement as he took bites out of each in turn, he said, “Well it all winds up in your stomach at the same time doesn’t it?“

He had a few other choice expressions such as, “Give me a long enough broom and a long enough mop and I”ll clean and sweep up the whole world”.   He once was a boxer with Golden Gloves and he had this beaut of a saying-  “I have a machine gun right and a bazooka left and if I hit you, you’ll sleep through the night“.  Yes, Richard Barkely was indeed a character.  He did happen to be an excellent custodian though always wanting to do things his way. 

We once went to a movie together that was called “Who is Killing the Great Chef’s of Europe?”  In the middle of the picture he stood up in the middle of the movie saying, “This is a filthy movie“, and then departed.  I thought he went out for popcorn but he actually left the theatre and walked three miles home.  The movie, by the way, was a classic comedy starring George Segal and Robert Morley. 

Yes, Richard Barkley broke the mold when he was born as there can’t be another like him in the entire world!

Was the Old Joplin Boys Club “Haunted”?

What you see here is the relatively new Joplin Boys and Girls Club but when I was Executive Director there, we were in the old building. The only thing new was the gymnasium and new section of the building whose shell was up and covered but the interior was not yet finished.

One Halloween evening, at the old boys club, I was downstairs in the basement of the club, which we had previously rented out, but now was vacant. Just past the stairs was a wall with a room behind that wall. On a club overnight, I unlocked the door which led to the upstairs boys club, a lock that was previously always locked. I turned off all the lights in the basement and hid in the room within a room.

One of the older boys noticed the unlocked door and he and three friends chose to investigate. As they held a pool stick in front of them they groped along the wall. When they came to the location of the room behind the wall they were groping at, I began knocking loudly from within that wall. Those kids moved faster than they usually ate pizza.

They returned with a few more guys who didn’t believe their story and they heard the same knocking and a deep voice as well, that being mine. “You are mine!”, the voice boomed, but not for long as they scampered back into the upstairs of the boys club faster than greased lightning. Perhaps it is a good thing that the old boys club is no more for that haunting spirit is forever gone with it. Or is it????

Joplin Boys Club Transitions

Joe Becker Stadium was located right across the street from the Joplin Boys Club and hosted many regional baseball games. And while it has remained basically the same over the years, the Joplin Boys Club has not. Now-a-days when school is not in session, neither is the boys club which is difficult to understand. When I was the Director there, non school days saw very high attendance.

Yet now the club also closes at 7pm on weeknights and this is odd because that is not the pattern of most boys clubs in this country. Perhaps the change is due to budget concerns? Then again, the percentage of black kids at the club has dropped to around 10% where in my day the club had a nearly 80% black membership. Since the club itself is located in the black community, I am not sure as to why the club membership for black kids has dropped so dramatically?

The club largely now hosts kids from grade school and this was proabably our smallest age grouping when I was in Joplin. Kids from 12 to 18 made up the largest percentage of our membership and I now wonder why older kids aren’t coming to the club anymore? Since the club has expanded in size since I was there, including two gymnasiums, one would think that older kids would flock to the club if for nothing else but basketball.

Yes, things change over the years but apparently Joe Becker has not. I would have hoped ths same could have been said for the boys club.

Joplin Boys Club Athletic Field Today

The Joplin Boys and Girls Club today is much safer than in past years because its athletic field is completely fenced in. It would seem that the events of the present day have dictated that response. When I was the Director there in 1979 there was no need for a fence. Fences can also keep people out that need to be in that organization. Though located in the poorer section of Joplin, my administration had no troubles with abuses on the athletic field since the only times kids were out there was with staff supervision.

I would presume that would hold true for the present day as well.  Yet I understand that drug needles have been found on the club grounds which necessitated that a fence be built around the athletic field.  Drugs were around in my day too but I never found any on our premises in that era.  Of course I had a three man custodian team that canvassed the grounds daily.

The current club also does not have to concern itself with the Greater Ozark Soccer Association which is to their benefit as that group basically used the boys club for its soccer program while paying little heed to the philosophy of Boys Clubs of America or the rest of the program schedule.  Now the field can be used for club activities period.  That is progress!