Angela Norris went looking for a good man to serve as a mentor for her students at Old Town Elementary School.
She found two -- Marcallus Sunday and LaShun Huntley.
On Mondays, each man uses his lunch hour to head out to Old Town and talk with the boys in Norris' class about such important things as how to treat themselves and others.
"They teach you to be a gentleman," said fourth-grader Kendrick O'Neil. "If you treat someone with respect, they will treat you with respect."
Sunday and Huntley encourage the boys to set goals for themselves. On a recent Monday, Kendrick talked about working on remembering to open the door for his mother whenever they were out together. Other boys brought the men up to date on such goals as not talking out of turn in class, not rushing through homework and doing chores at home.
The men also make the point that no matter what you want to become in life, you need to be well-educated. With that in mind, they told the boys they were going to go over some of the vocabulary words that they might encounter in their end-of-grade tests.
Huntley, whose job is teaching parenting skills to fathers through the Forsyth County Department of Social Services, has read a lot about how boys and men learn. He knows that having something to do with their hands helps them focus.
So he pulled out a football and had the boys stand up and spread out. He would read a word and ask them to define it. When the boys' hands went up, he would toss the football to one and give him a chance to say what such words as "explain," "contrast," and "predict" mean.
"To make an educated guess" is how Justin Cannady defined "predict."
"They're catching and thinking," Huntley said later.
After several boys talked about a word, Sunday would read the official definition. Here and there, Huntley and Sunday would sprinkle in observations about proper behavior and the importance of education.
"This is your future right here," Sunday said.
It was all very low-key, and the boys appeared to be having a lot of fun.
To back up for a moment: Old Town is a Title I school, which means that a high percentage of students receive free or reduced-price lunches. As a Title I teacher, Norris is there to provide extra help and enrichment for students.
During the 2007-2008 school year, it occurred to her that some of the boys she worked with could benefit from having a male mentor. When she went looking, she met Sunday, who is a parent-involvement specialist for Family Services Head Start in Forsyth County.
"I asked the right person," Norris said.
He, in turn, invited Huntley to join him. Last year, they worked with a group of fifth-graders. This year, they're working with fourth- and fifth-graders. So that the boys will feel comfortable talking about whatever comes up, Norris usually leaves the classroom.
"I consider this to be male time," she said. "They might talk to them about things they wouldn't normally talk about."
Huntley traces his interest in volunteering to work with boys to his days as a teacher at Parkland High School.
"I was noticing that a lot of males didn't have a lot of direction," he said.
A boy might say he wanted to be a professional athlete but he wasn't seeing the bigger picture that, no matter what you want to do, you need focus and education. Sunday, who has five children, also sees volunteering as part of his responsibility to the wider community.
"I want their friends to have the same goals and aspirations," Sunday said.
He volunteers at other schools as well and with such programs as Boy Scouts. Both men praised Norris for going the extra mile for her students.
"I don't think she throws away any kids," Sunday said.
"We've got to do this together," Norris said. "The kids have to know we all want you to be successful."
For kids, Sunday said, having people out in the world who know them means something. From time to time, someone he was worked with him will come up to him in the grocery store and say, "Mr. Sunday, you remember me?"
He will smile and say, "Yeah, I remember you."
■ Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com.
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