Ozark Profile : Watts brings world of experience to NWA Salvation Army
Posted on Monday, December 22, 2008
BROOKE McNEELY Northwest Arkansas Times Maj. Richard Watts entered the Salvation Army in 1971 and now administers the organization's programs throughout Northwest Arkansas.
Maj. Richard Watts has traveled many miles to make it to Fayetteville.
The Northwest Arkansas area commander of the Salvation Army started his life in Boston, but he has called many places home during his 56 years. He arrived in Fayetteville In June 2007.
His life didn't start out in the easiest of situations. He said he was "a little street urchin." He grew up in rougher neighborhoods and said he knows what it feels like to go hungry.
But he also said his younger years help him relate to the people he helps today through the Salvation Army. He was not born into the Salvation Army. His mother was Catholic, got divorced and was excommunicated from the church. They went to church with a neighbor for a while and then the family moved. That's when his life took its first turn.
"We ended up at the Salvation Army after a baby sitter invited us," he said, with a slight Boston accent. "My mom needed to get a job to support the family."
His mother remarried, and his stepfather, the man Richard said is the only father he knew, was out to sea.
"We had never heard of the Salvation Army. It wasn't long before (the baby sitter) and my mom became best friends, and she invited her to go to church."
Richard said he didn't want to go and the first day his mother and his sister, Shirley, went to the church, he snuck down the stairs and went to play football with his friends.
"My mom and sister went to church and said what a wonderful time they had." he said.
The next Sunday, as Richard was trying to sneak away again, his mother caught him and told him he was going to church.
"That was in 1958, and I've been going ever since," he said. "This is my 50th year. I hadn't thought about that until just now."
Richard said the Salvation Army made a major impression on him after he got into a fight and ended up standing before a judge.
"One of the things I remember is the only man who stood beside me was a Salvation Army captain. What that did was enhance my desire when I got older to become part of the Salvation Army," he said. "So throughout my teenage years and when I was getting into trouble and stuff like that, while there were challenges, the desire to serve in the Salvation Army at no time ever left me."
The family eventually moved to North Carolina and later Texas.
After graduating high school he moved to McAllen, Texas, to become a church helper. He later served a summer in Mexico. That trip convinced him that he wanted to enter the Salvation Army's college for officer training, which he did in 1971.
That decision shaped the rest of his life and is where he met his wife-to-be, "Ginny."
Meeting Mrs. Watts
Maj. Virginia "Ginny" Watts is the coordinator of the Salvation Army's women's ministries in the area. She grew up in the church, and both of her parents were officers in the Salvation Army.
"My wife and I are sort of an odd couple. My wife has a great education and comes from an army family. She's very polite and very well mannered," Richard said. "I grew up in housing projects. And that made things difficult. My poor upbringing reflects itself."
Ginny said despite Richard's challenges, he had a good upbringing.
"He might have been in a poor neighborhood, but his mother kept a tight reign on him. His father would keep him straight," she said. "It's not so much where you were born, but how your parents keep you in line."
The couple's courtship was not traditional. The officers training is a seminary. Days were long, and they had to write for permission to correspond.
"Basically that meant we had to have official permission to hang around with each other. Then later we got permission for engagement, and then we got permission to get married," Richard said.
They were turned down twice on their request to get married.
"Part of the reason was that I was so young. The army required, in those days, that you be 22, and I was 21," he said.
Ginny is a few years older.
They considered leaving the Salvation Army, getting married and then reapplying, but Richard said, "You never know what will happen."
Good friends told them to be patient, and after a change of leadership, they made their request again. Finally, they were told yes.
"We got married right after my 22nd birthday," Richard said. They will celebrate their 35th anniversary in February.
Life at the seminary
The seminary is four years of classes crammed into two years, so free time was sparse.
Days started at 7 a.m. with breakfast followed by assigned duties ranging from polishing brass doorknobs to doing dishes. Once jobs were completed, it was time to go to devotions and then on to class, which could go until 9 or 10 p.m.
"This was pre-computers, so you weren't in a position to go online and do research. But you would go back to your room and read, study for the next day's classes or exams or whatever you had," he said.
Sometimes they would go out to other communities on the weekends, either alone or as a group.
"It was a practicum that helped you prepare yourself so when you became a corps officer or commanding officer, you would have some experience under your belt on how to do this," he said. "You make your mistakes then so hopefully when you become an officer, you make less mistakes. But you certainly keep making mistakes."
The summer between the first and second year, seminary students are sent away on an assignment lasting the whole summer. He spent that summer in Austin, Texas, living in a shelter with about 90 homeless men. He had a little apartment there, but he lived in the building with them.
Starting life together
Richard said he and his wife have been fortunate in their Salvation Army career and have worked in some wonderful places.
Their first appointment after they got married and were commissioned was in Laredo, Texas, where they spent 5.5 years.
While starting their life together was exciting, the couple also experienced tragedy.
Their oldest son, Richard James, died from spinal meningitis at 7 months of age.
"That was probably one of the changing moments of my life because we were discussing building a new building at the time. It was just preliminary discussions, and at his death I just wanted to immerse myself into anything so I wouldn't have to think about R.J. and his passing," he said.
That launched Richard on a path of fundraising and constructing a new building for the Salvation Army, which he has done at just about every appoint he's ever been at.
"It all stems from R.J.'s passing. The hole that was left has never been filled and never will be," he said.
His son died Jan. 1, 1976. "You're pleading with God to spare him. You make commitments. You have discussions. It was very difficult emotionally to deal with."
Richard said he has an understanding with God and that's going to be his first question when he sees him.
"The Bible says that on to him are issues of life and death," he said.
The couple went on to have three more children - Kimberly, Richard and Timothy.
Kimberly Joy is the oldest of the three, and the couple didn't know that Ginny was three weeks pregnant with her at the time of R.J.'s death.
"We named her Kimberly Joy because she was the joy God sent us after the passing of Richard James," he said. He said they figured they would have three girls and name then Faith, Hope and Joy. Instead, he said they were blessed with two more sons.
Making moves
From Laredo, Texas, the family was transferred to Lufkin, Texas. He said they went from a community that was mostly Hispanic to a congregation of rednecks.
"That is part of the beauty of the Salvation Army - you get stretched. Your taste buds get stretched, your imagination and your perception of what is good and what you enjoy grows."
They spent 3.5 years there, and they raised about $100,000 to pay off a mortgage.
"In 1979, that was a whole lot of money. We had wonderful people in the community that stepped up and contributed to the army," he said.
The next move was to Galveston, Texas. They didn't want to leave, but they didn't have a choice.
"Your heart begins to stretch. We made a physical, emotional and spiritual commitment that we were going to love the people in Galveston as much as we loved the people of Lufkin."
In Galveston, the Salvation Army had the only shelter, and they saw everyone. Some of the people that came to the shelter were not the most emotionally stable.
They were on the island during Hurricane Alicia, and Richard said before Hurricane Ike, that this was the "big dog."
The family house was only a few blocks from the beach, but the family rode out the storm.
At 6 a.m. the next day, he kissed his wife goodbye and jumped into the army's emergency canteen unit. They promised each other that at 10 a.m. no matter what they were doing they would meet at a preassigned spot. That was the only way they would know that the other was still alive.
Richard made his way to the Salvation Army building which was only one block off the bay, but the building was under 5 feet of water. And the tide was going out.
"My canteen began to rock, and it's a large vehicle. I had to jump out of it before it tipped over," he said. "And the tide took me and was going to wash me out to sea."
He was able to grab a stop sign, and he said he was literally parallel to the street as the current tried to pull him out. He was finally able to getting his footing and walked the last block and a half to the building.
On a normal night about 100 people would stay there, but the night of the hurricane they had about 200 people. A tornado had struck a building across the street and destroyed it, and the suction pulled out the shelter's windows.
"We had people sleeping in all these room throughout the building, so when the windows were blown out and when the rain started coming in, everyone moved to the hallway," he said. "When I opened the door to the building, the stairwell was lined with people sleeping there on the stairs."
He said his office was on the second floor of the three-story building and it had 2 inches of water on the floor.
"We began intense disaster work," he said.
He said he had done disaster work at other places but it's completely different when it happens at your post.
He said help eventually leaves, but people still suffer for years to come.
They were able to raise several million dollars to hurricane-proof the Salvation Army, and Richard said he is pleased to say that the building still stands today.
Going overseas
While in Galveston, Richard attended a seminar in Chicago, and at that time he felt the desire to work overseas.
"However, I sort of challenged the Lord and said when I get back, I want my wife to mention the subject within three days, otherwise I'll figure it was the pepperoni pizza or something spicy that I ate," he said with a laugh.
On his second day home, Ginny turned to him and said, "You want to go overseas, don't you?"
They left for Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1986. They would spend 3.5 years in that country.
"We had no heat in our buildings, no air conditioning, no car, and we made $26 a week. And we loved every bit of it," he said. "My children learned Spanish on the streets of Uruguay and learned to play soccer." He said they are excellent at both - all three are still fluent in Spanish, and his sons still play in soccer leagues.
He said his in-laws helped "keep them alive" by sending them $100 a month - basically doubling his salary.
The children went to American schools and made friends from other parts of the world.
Uruguay is a tiny country between Argentina and Brazil, and Richard calls it the "jewel of South America."
They ran many things in Uruguay, including a day care center, orphanage, schools, senior citizens home, a women's center and six churches.
This is also where Richard had the opportunity to meet Pope John Paul II, which he said was a big moment in his life. He also hosted the international leader of the Salvation Army at that time, Gen. Eva Burrows.
Then they were transferred to Buenos Aires, Argentina. They went from a small country to a city of 26.5 million people.
"It was a totally different setting," he said.
Richard said they didn't go hungry, but they also didn't have a lot of money. Then a moment with their son Timothy helped them decide to return to the United States.
"He came running up and held a great big bell pepper in his hand. It was huge. He said, 'Look, Dad,'" Richard said. His son turned over the pepper and the other half was rotten, but Timothy said, "If we cut off the rotten part we can eat the rest of this."
Richard said that when your kids start pulling rotten vegetables out of the garbage, it may be time to go home.
Back to the U.S.
Their next stop was Miami where they had 26 different countries represented in their congregation, so they were able to maintain their connection to the international world.
Then Hurricane Andrew hit, and Richard said, "Thank goodness I wasn't in charge."
The family was actually in Little Rock visiting friends when the hurricane struck. Richard flew home and was on the next to the last plane to fly into Miami International Airport before the hurricane. Ginny and the kids drove down later.
"I got there just in time to put boarding over the windows of my house and at the church. In fact, I was boarding up the house as the storm was striking," he said. "It was pretty ugly and probably not the smartest think I've ever done, being out there in that terrible storm."
The Salvation Army needed someone with experience dealing with such a huge disaster, and the officer in Charleston, S.C., had dealt with Hurricane Hugo. That man was transferred to Florida and Richard was sent to Charleston to take his place.
That's where they spent the next nine years. Richard said they were very fortunate, and their children went through school and college there. That long of an assignment is very rare in the Salvation Army, he said.
They did another capital campaign there and built another building.
They were then transferred to Columbia, S.C.
"That was a very difficult assignment because there were some serious community relations challenges," he said. They were trying to raise money to build a new building, and the Salvation Army wanted to bring in someone new.
"We raised a little bit more money and built a beautiful complex there," he said, pointing to a picture of the facility hanging on the wall of his Fayetteville office. "We also established a second church there."
They then found themselves in Louisville, Ky., waiting to go overseas again but in the meantime the U.S. had invaded Iraq. Some of the countries they had talked about going to were Islamic.
They waited about six months or so, and still had no answer on their request to go overseas. They were asked if they would like to stay in Louisville, which they did for the next three years.
Moving to NWA
Then they got word that they were being transferred to Northwest Arkansas as area commanders.
Here Richard administers the army's programs that include three churches, four social service offices, two shelters, a rehab program, four thrift stores and a soup kitchen. The area command serves more than 117,000 people annually. There are shelters in Fayetteville and Rogers and churches in both those cities and in Springdale.
"One of our biggest problems here is we need new facilities," he said. "The Rogers facility is deplorable, and the Fayetteville facility is overworked."
He said they are serving 30 percent more meals than last year, and last year was up 63 percent from the year before.
"There is some tremendous needs here, and what we are doing is we're trying to find out is how will what we do work. We want to make sure as the Salvation Army evolves in Northwest Arkansas, it's meeting the community needs.
"It's not about the Salvation Army, it's about the people and community," he said.
He said this area is fortunate to have some big companies - such as Wal-Mart, Tyson and Procter & Gamble - that are socially conscious. That doesn't hap pen everywhere, he said.
"The character of any community is not their per capita income or how well their football team does, but the real character of any community is determined on how they take care of those in need," he said. "Northwest Arkansas does a great job, but that doesn't mean it does a complete job."
He said he wants to help people change their lives.
"We can house people in the coming years, but are we making an impact on home lessness? That's the real issue. By teaching people to address chemical addiction, be diagnosed for mental issues, then looking at job training. That is how we address the issue," he said. "The truth of the matter is I want to put the Salvation Army out of business."
But he said he knows he has job security.
"Unfortunately, the Bible says, 'The poor you will always have with you,' and that is the case," Richard said. "There are always going to be people that need help, and I hope the Salvation Army is faithful in help ing them."
Retirement could come in the next four or five years but he plans to stay busy even after that day comes.
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