Community Champion: Johnny McClure
It’s time to recognize a Community Champion, an honor given to people making a positive impact in the community.
It’s in partnership with Leaders Credit Union.
Johnny McClure is a Huntingdon resident, which is also the home to Carrol Academy, an adolescent intensive day treatment program.
“If this school had been here in the late 70s I probably would have been here myself. So deep down I have a great love and appreciation for this school because every child deserves a second chance,” shared McClure.
Carroll Academy serves the juvenile courts of Carroll, Henry, Henderson, Weakley and Benton counties, who order students to their program for six months or until they complete the academy’s behavioral plan.
“People don’t know what these kids go through, that’s why we need to raise awareness about this place because it’s all about the kids,” McClure said.
The last few years McClure has been trying to get his health in a better place and between turning 60 and buying a new bike… an idea formed.
“I thought to challenge myself I’m going to ride 60 miles, which from Huntingdon to Dresden and back is 60 miles and then I got to thinking about and praying about it and I told Sweetie, my wife, that maybe we should put this on her facebook page. Might be a way to raise a little money for Carroll Academy,” McClure explained.
However, it wasn’t an easy task.
“Before last summer I had not ridden a bicycle since I was a teenager,” shared McClure.
He says at the end of the ride, he had to encounter an obstacle that he hadn’t been able to previously conquer.
“There’s one big hill here in town that up until then I’d never been able to pedal all the way up and I was determined, I was, if I fell over, if I got so slow pedaling on that hill that I fell over I was willing to do that, but I was going to make it up that hill. I got to the point where I usually stop, get off, and push, but I kept going. We’re more capable of accomplishing things than we give ourselves credit for,” McClure shared.
That hill is symbolic of the struggles the students at Carroll Academy face.
“These kids, they deserve that second chance and this place gives them a second chance and they need to see people that are out there doing the hard things, because they go through a lot,” McClure said.
McClure says it’s a community effort to keep kids from falling through the cracks, and by documenting his ride online they were able to raise more than a thousand dollars for Carroll Academy.
“Social media can be a wonderful thing, it can also have its drawbacks but if it’s used in the right way, absolutely, it’s just another tool that we have to be doing the Lord’s work,” McClure said.
