BOYS TOWN, Neb. -- The home for wayward boys founded 65 years ago by the Rev. Edward Flanagan, having recovered from a period in which its operations were under a cloud, today is more robust than ever.
Boys Town lost the glowing image celebrated in Spencer Tracy's 1938 movie about a priest who rescued bad boys. In a 1973 Pulitzer Prize winning expose, The Sun Newspapers of Omaha said the organization had more money than it knew what to do with.
That is when the Rev. Robert Hupp, a Nebraskan who had spent 30 years as a parish priest, was picked by the archdiocese to deal with Boys Town's problems.
'When I first came here, they were making book on which week I would leave,' Hupp said with a smile. 'I said, 'Hey, I want in on some of that action.'
'I know what I'm doing now... I didn't then,' he said. 'I don't think there's an institution in the country that doesn't have people around who are allergic to work. We had our share of them.
'The pressure started when I walked in that office and saw what had to be done,' said Hupp, 67.
In 1917 Flanagan, with three boys from a juvenile court and two homeless youths, borrowed $90 for a month's rent on a two-story brick building in Omaha and established Father Flanagan's Boys Home.
Boys Town still takes in wayward boys. But it also pours millions of dollars into youth research and care and spreading its program into the nation's urban areas.
Hupp said Boys Town operates on an annual budget of some $36 million and depends on donations for 50 percent of its income. It has spent $270 million during his tenure while taking in about $110 million. Income from a $202.9 million endowment fund makes up the difference.
When Hupp arrived, Boys Town was warehousing 800 boys in dormitories supervised by counselors working in shifts. Under a family living concept Hupp introduced in 1975, the town now has some 430 boys housed in 41 cottages, each run by a full-time couple -- live-in 'parents' who earn $18,000 a year per couple plus room and board.
A dozen girls are housed in apartments in the old boys' dormitories.
Hupp said Flanagan, who built the first 25 cottages in 1945 but died before he could introduce family-style care, would approve of the change.
'We used to have counselors on eight-hour shifts,' Hupp said. 'I'd ask a kid, 'Who's your counselor?' and he'd say 'Morning or afternoon shift?'
'Family teachers have to be on the job morning, noon and night. If you think that isn't a job just try and imagine one of these kids is enough to drive you crazy at home -- that's why they send them here.
'People sometimes drive through and say, 'Where are all the kids?' I say, 'You'd better not see them -- they have places to be.' There's no loitering around.'
Along with classroom teaching and extra-curricular activities - including the heralded choir -- the home offers 14 vocational trades.
The school covers 1st grade through high school, with most youngsters at 3rd grade age or older.
Hupp said the average student stay at Boys Town has been reduced from as many as nine years to two. The cost is about $100 a day for each resident of the small village just west of Omaha.
'We have our own police force, our own fire department, our own zoning commission,' Hupp said. 'I am the mayor, I am the fire chief and I am the police commissioner. The buck stops right here.'
In addition to youth research programs with Stanford and Catholic universities, Boys Town has a children's hospital in Omaha and operates a cooperative youth care program with facilities across the country. It also has started Boys Town USA, aimed at establishing Boys Town-type campuses in urban areas.
'We have people from Germany, Belgium, England and Japan coming to look at our program. They like what they see,' Hupp said. 'Michigan - as poor as that state is right now -- they're cutting back their social agencies. We've got three community homes up there. They want more.'
The Herrons, Ron, 33, and Annette, 34, were the first house parents under Boys Town's family teaching concept. They started their third stint Jan. 1.
'It's a big drain on your private life. You just don't have any,' Mrs. Herron said of her role as a family teacher. 'It's a lifestyle, not a job. Some get in and say, 'Gee we made a mistake.''
The Herrons have seen school dropouts from broken homes, abused and neglected, unable to relate to people, and with police records.
'Most of the kids, before they came here, have gotten what they wanted but through negative channels,' Herron said. 'We try to turn that into a positive situation. But when they leave here they're on their own -- what they do is their choice.'
Abdul and Nadiyah Seraaj, both 26 and Moslems, acknowledged their job is a challenge.
'Basketball, wrestling, choir, Junior Achievement -- something to keep down the drugs,' Seraaj said. 'We monitor the boys closely.'
An uncontrollable student is placed in an 'intensive situation,' Seraaj said.
'I continue to counsel him. You don't leave him. Boys Town just doesn't put you in a situation and expect you to act appropriately. You are taught to deal with the most minute behavior. When you learn to deal with smaller problems you can defuse the larger ones when they arise.'
Dean Fixsen, director of Boys Town's cooperative group home program, said social agencies, governments and church groups across the country are copying the Boys Town method.
'On any given day there are 700,000 kids who don't live in their own homes. Boys Town, Nebraska, can take care of 450 some kids here on any given day,' he said.
The program's aim is to break the chain of events that puts boys and girls in trouble with the law, their teachers, their parents or other authorities.
'Then, hopefully, they'll carry that on to their own lives and their kids won't end up back in a Boys Town,' Fixsen said.
The program currently has 75 homes in 13 states and the District of Columbia serving some 450 youths.
Fixsen and his staff work with agencies trying to set up group homes, teaching them how to train family counselors.
'It's not just getting the kids off the street. It's not just providing a place for them to hang out until they turn 18,' he said.
Boys Town has gone beyond taking in wayward boys. The Boys Town Institute, established in Omaha in 1975, is a hospital that treats learning disorders in children, mainly boys and girls of pre-school age.
Dr. Patrick J. Brookhouser, 42, the institute's director, said children with learning disorders such as difficulties with speech or hearing are more likely to get into trouble with police and teachers.
'If we can devise a means to keep kids out of trouble with the law, we feel we've had a real success,' he said.
Treatment ranges from the fitting of hearing aids to surgery on cleft palates.
Brookhouser said parents also are involved in the treatment.
'There's sort of a grieving process that goes on for parents of a child with a newly discovered disability,' he said.
Boys Town Institute has treated patients from 48 states and several foreign countries, handling 4,000 to 5,000 children a year. Brookhouser said about half the services are provided free.
Parents are sent a full bill, but donors fill the financial gap created by treatment and research costs.
'You don't have to be totally impoverished for a child's handicap to put a severe bind on your finances,' Brookhouser said. 'This kind of disability doesn't respect economic class.'
Ed Novotny came to Boys Town in the late 1930s from a Nebraska family hit by the Depression. He now heads the Boys Town vocational career center.
'A student today has more to confront than I did,' he said. 'My gosh, I didn't have a dope problem. We didn't know what dope was.'
Middle School Principal George Pfeifer, who came to Boys Town from Kansas also in the late '30s, agrees.
'When they leave here, if they retain only half of what they learn, they're going to be in pretty good shape,' Pfeifer said of his young charges. 'I think a lot of times we left that to chance when I was a student here.'
Still, he said, 'Without Boys Town care and training, I'd be nowhere.'
