Volunteer 'Can't Sit'

Volunteering got Dick Wilson not only a certificate signed by the governor but also a wife.

The day he showed up to help a cousin clean some grain for planting he found a young woman named Helen there with a friend. Before the day was out he made a date. Helen is now his wife of 62 years.

"It was volunteering that got me hooked up with her," he said.

Now 21 years of helping people earn their GEDs has gotten Wilson named the Stokes County recipient of the 2008 N.C. Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service, an honor that came complete with a certificate signed by Gov. Mike Easley.

Wilson, 85, grew up in Pennsylvania as the oldest of eight children. He traces his willingness to volunteer to his father.

"My dad was always a very generous person," Wilson said. "He always encouraged us to work hard -- earn your money -- and help people. And all of us are that way."

Life in the military

Wilson fought in World War II as a member of the Army Air Corps. After spending five years in civilian life, he returned to military life. After a 20-year career as a machinist in the Air Force -- his career included a tour in Vietnam -- he retired as a senior master sergeant.

He continued to work as a machinist in civilian life before retiring a second time. The Wilsons, who have two children, moved to Germanton in 1985 to be near their only grandson. After Wilson settled into life here, he started looking around for a way to contribute.

"I can't sit," he said. "I have got to do something."

In addition to his skills as a machinist, Wilson has skills as a plumber, an electrician and a carpenter, and his first idea was to volunteer to help teach people a trade. He discovered that it would be easy enough to find a paid position doing that, but he had trouble finding a way to do that as a volunteer. So he decided to shift his focus.

Reading has enriched his life immensely. He likes to read about history. He enjoys National Geographic and the novels of James Michener. He reads the Bible regularly, and, most days, he works his way from the front of the newspaper to the back.

So he thought that helping people learn to read would be satisfying. This time, he found a ready outlet volunteering with a program sponsored by the Pilot Mountain Baptist Association. His first student caught on quickly. He told Wilson that, after years of having no idea what people's T-shirts said, he especially liked being able to know where they had been or what team they supported.

Wilson encouraged the man to go on and get his GED.

"He said he would go if I would go along and help," Wilson said.

Wilson was happy to do so. That got him hooked up with Forsyth Technical Community College's GED program, and he has been volunteering ever since. For most of that time, he has been volunteering two nights a week in the program held at the library in Walnut Cove.

"I help whoever needs help," he said.

Over the years, he has become good friends with Betty Smith, the librarian at the Walnut Cove Library.

"He is truly one of the most caring, giving people I have ever met," Smith said.

Part of their routine is for Wilson to give her a hard time about whatever comes to mind when he comes in.

"If he weren't picking, it would worry me to death," she said.

Wilson said he is an equal-opportunity troublemaker.

"I pick on everybody," he said.

When Tony Chappell became the teacher for Forsyth Tech's GED program in Walnut Cove, they discovered that they both like to stir things up.

"If we couldn't insult each other on a regular basis, we couldn't survive," Chappell said.

On a more serious note, Chappell added, "He can work with anybody and help them get to the solutions of wherever their problem is. He's very good at what he does. As far as I'm concerned, this guy is invaluable. It's like having a second instructor."

Chappell said that the only thing he can't count on Wilson for is paperwork. That's true, Wilson said. He did enough paperwork in the Air Force to last him a lifetime.

Wilson has an easy rapport with the students, and, when the War of 1812 came up in class last week, one student earned a laugh from everyone by asking whether that was the year Wilson was born.

And, when the value of a GED in the job market came up, Wilson said he was all for them paying Social Security taxes because he wanted his Social Security checks to keep coming.

"That's the real reason Dick comes down here," Chappell said.

■ Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com.